Shatterpoints
by SpellCleaver
Summary: A series of canon-based oneshots in which a single thing was changed, and the galaxy changed because of it. Featuring: Vader finds out about Leia at the same time he finds out about Luke, Padmé survives ROTS and restores the Republic, Bodhi Rook never defected.
1. Commodex Tahn, 0 ABY

**This will be a series of oneshots in which one thing happened differently at any point in the saga, and things spiral down a totally different path because of it. I don't know how long each of them will be, but considering they're essentially new stories for every chapter, they'll probably be much longer than the chapters I usually post. I don't know how I'll write them, either - in this fic, I went with the fact that I wrote the thing that changed, wrote the immediate fallout, then briefly described the long term consequences of it, but I don't know if that will be a theme.**

 **So, yeah. This is an AU where, in Darth Vader #10, where Commodex Tahn revealed that Padmé gave birth to twins, instead of implying that Luke was her only child. I then go on to AU Vader Down slightly, if only because I didn't want to write out _every single thing_ that happens in it, so the outcome is pretty much the same, we just have a different way of getting there.**

 **If you haven't read the comics, you just need to know this: Aphra is a rogue archaeologist who works as an agent for Vader, Tahn is one of the people who planned Padmé's funeral to make it look like she was still pregnant, and this is set between ANH and ESB, shortly after Vader learned the name of the pilot who destroyed the Death Star.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars, or any of the characters in this. They belong to their respective owners.**

* * *

 _Commodex Tahn_

"Stop! Just _stop_! I can't. . ."

The torture droid waved its hand again, but it was nothing but a blur of silver in his vision. His eyes were streaming now, his voice screaming - he hadn't experienced anything like this since the Clone Wars. . .

 _Think about Queen Amidala. Think about her. She deserves your loyalty - as do her children. Protect them. . ._

But it hurt. Everything hurt. That blasted droid certainly knew how to do its job.

A stronger person - a Jedi - might have survived it. Commodex Tahn was no Jedi.

"Please. . ." he begged, not sure if it was the droid he was begging or his queen. If he was begging for it to stop, or for her forgiveness.

 _Her forgiveness. . ._ "Oh, forgive me, please. . ." _I can't hold out any longer._

He felt the droid's needle retract from his arm. Heard the clanking of its footsteps as it marched away, heard it tell that woman that he was ready to talk. His chest was heavy, like steel bands were encircling it, crushing it - he wouldn't survive this.

He didn't even have the strength left in him to look up as the woman crouched in front of him. But he could move his eyes, and he fixed his gaze on the tattoo snaking up her right arm. It looked like something in circuitry - was she familiar with droids? That would explain why she worked with them so much.

But hadn't she said she'd grown up during the Clone Wars? On the front lines? Wouldn't she have seen the battle droids there, and hated them for life?

Or maybe she'd been a Separatist, and the droids had been her saviours.

It didn't matter - he _knew_ it didn't matter. He was trying to distract himself from the inevitable, trying to distance himself from his own death, and it wasn't working.

Especially when the woman started talking.

"Amidala's hologram when she was buried made her appear like she was still pregnant," she said, narrowing her eyes at him. "But you, Mister Mortician, were one of the very few people who had any access to the body. You know the truth."

The truth? He knew parts of it. Bits and pieces - only the Jedi had known the whole truth, he knew, but they were probably long dead. The only truth left was in bits and pieces, and once he told this woman what she wanted to know, his queen's enemies would be that much closer to putting those pieces together.

But he couldn't keep the secret any longer. It hurt _so much_.

So he didn't bother shaking his head in denial when the woman said, "Senator Amidala had given birth."

He ground his teeth together even as she pressed on. "Right? She had offspring. The Jedi took it, and put it into hiding." There was a pause, then she pushed, "This can all be over if you just confirm what we already know. . ."

They already knew. He wouldn't be betraying his queen if he gave in - her children were already in danger, and no amount of suffering on his part would stop that. So he could just let his suffering end.

"Yes," he admitted slowly. "She had a son. And a daughter. Healthy twins. They took them away. I don't know anything else." He let his head hang, felt the spasms shoot up and down his neck, and whispered, "Forgive me, my queen," as he waited for the killing blow.

Which never came.

Something was wrong.

He lifted his head again, just enough to see the tension suddenly in every line of the woman's body. She grabbed his chin in one chin and forced him to look her in the eye. "Twins?" she said.

His head beat harder.

Oh, Shiraya's word. They hadn't known about the twins. He ran back through what she'd said - had she thought there was only one? Had they been separated in order to keep that ruse? And which one had been discovered? The girl? The boy?

Which one had he now put in danger?

"Twins," the woman repeated, like she was trying to understand it herself. "What were their names?" She was fishing for information, he knew - fishing for information that would appease whatever master she served, that might reflect better on her should the fact she hadn't known about the twins throw her abilities into doubt.

He tried to shake his head and tried to lie. "I don't-"

"Triple-Zero?"

That blasted droid jabbed him in the side again with the needle, and lightning coursed through him. He screamed, throat already hoarse and shattered from it all, even as the pain intensity only increased. . . and increased. . . and increased. . .

 _This can all be over. . ._

"Wait. . ." he tried to whisper. The woman gestured to the droid, and the pain stopped.

He was panting, his heart beating erratically. Even if the droid _didn't_ flat out kill him, he'd die within the hour with these sorts of chemicals in his body. He'd seen it before, during the Clone Wars.

"Their names?" The woman asked.

But he didn't die soon enough that his interrogator couldn't pry the information from his lips. "Luke. . . and Leia."

* * *

Since that fateful day on Mustafar, Vader's breathing had been regulated by his suit, the never-ending rasp of the respirator an annoyance he'd learned to live with.

But that didn't mean that for a moment, he thought he would stop breathing at the report Doctor Aphra gave him about her job on Naboo.

"That's my report," she said, ostensibly ignorant to just how deeply her news had shocked him. But then again, maybe she wasn't: the Dark Side roiling around him had caused the temperature in the cave to drop significantly, and the hairs on her arms pricked up in response to that. "In short: your sources were only half right."

Twins.

Padmé had had twins.

Obi-Wan hadn't only hidden his _son_ from him, but his _daughter_ too. His daughter, who could be anywhere in the galaxy for all he knew.

The thought had him reaching for his lightsaber, remembering their final duel on the Death Star. His death had been far too merciful. . .

It was an effort to push the haze of anger and hate aside for a moment and ask, "Did you discover anything else?"

"Nothing relevant, really," his agent said, lifting her blaster to shoot at one of the crystals outcroppings that grew in the cave. It was what had made this particular cave cluster on Anthan Prime so ideal for secret meetings - the crystals were difficult to travel through - but it was also what held the caves upright. No matter: if the cave came down on them, he could lift the rock with little problem. "Just their names."

Vader unconsciously leaned forward slightly, so he towered over Aphra more than had already did. Their names. . .

If she was taken aback by his sudden eagerness, she didn't show it. "Luke and Leia," she said.

There was a silence as Vader pondered them. Luke - that was the boy, obviously. The boy who'd destroyed the Death Star, who carried his old lightsaber, whom he'd sent Boba Fett to hunt down. The one with a Force presence like a star going supernova.

Luke meant 'light giving' on Naboo, he remembered. It was one of the ones Padmé had selected. He had to admit, it was. . . fitting.

So Leia was the girl. That had been one of the ones that _he_ \- that Anakin Skywalker had selected. It made him think of. . .

Of the Princess of Alderaan. Leia Organa.

He frowned behind his mask. Leia was by no means an uncommon name in the galaxy, and, unlike with his son, he had no mental image of his daughter to pair with the name - it was natural he call up an image of the only person named Leia whom he knew of.

But now that he was thinking about it. . .

Dark hair. Dark eyes. That same diminutive stature.

A political genius, and fierce defender of democracy - as bold in her defence of it as Anakin Skywalker had been.

Mental shields as strong as kyber, able to withstand even the worst of his interrogative techniques in her cell on the Death Star.

It was no secret that she had been adopted by the Organas, seeing as the Queen of Alderaan had been unable to produce an heir. Nor that she'd been adopted immediately after the Clone Wars had ended - immediately after Padmé had died. . .

And Padmé had been very good friends with Bail Organa.

He'd been silent for too long. Aphra was looking at him again. "Er. . ."

He didn't speak.

". . .anything else on the to-do list, Lord Vader?"

He mentally shook himself. He could meditate on this later - right now, he needed to find his son (and daughter) and have them brought to him.

So he assigned Aphra the task of finding the location of the boy. He would deal with the girl later.

She was gone soon enough, only the footprints she'd left behind testament to the fact she'd been there at all. And Vader was left alone with his thoughts.

Leia Organa was his daughter.

Leia Organa, the terrorist princess, the teenager he'd tortured, was his daughter.

He didn't know what to do except _act_. Didn't know _anything_ , except-

The Emperor couldn't know.

He'd known that the Emperor couldn't know about the boy, and he certainly couldn't know about the girl, either. Whatever he did with them - train them as Sith, protect them, give them the galaxy as a crown - they were _his_ , and his master would not take them from him.

They were _his_ children, and Padmé's children, and they would rule the galaxy.

* * *

 _Vrogas Vas_ , Aphra had said the boy was on. Vader couldn't fathom why.

A dusty rock in the middle of nowhere, which may or may not have a Jedi Temple on its surface? It was a dead place, and he'd expected nothing but dead things when he'd arrived here. He hadn't expected to meet anything alive except the boy - and he certainly hadn't expected to meet anything alive _before he'd even landed_.

But he had. He'd met three X-wing squadrons before he'd landed. He could only assume they'd been running manoeuvres.

How unfortunate for them.

He could feel their fear as his fighter shot forward, slicing through their ranks with an embarrassing ease. They fired their shots: he evaded them without trouble. They fired their torpedoes: he pushed them away with the Force.

The starfighter squadron that attacked him didn't stand a chance. The second squadron didn't fare well either.

It was with a vicious satisfaction that he watched the debris rain down onto the planet below. These were the Rebels who'd dared defy the Empire, who'd dared _hide his children from him_. They deserved every inch of the suffering he inflicted for hiding them, poisoning their minds, _recruiting_ them in the fight _against their father_. . .

He felt another presence charge at him from behind; he swirled round eagerly to face it. A pilot from the only remaining squadron had attacked without the support of his comrades.

The confidence with which he flew, the anger, the aggression Vader could sense through the Force. . .

"Finally," he murmured. "A pilot worth killing."

He watched the Rebel get closer and closer. Felt them stretch deeper into the Force as they flew, letting it guide their actions, and, suddenly, he _recognised_ that blindingly bright Force presence.

"Wait," he murmured, "I sense-"

Whatever he was going to say was cut off when his son's fighter collided with his, and they were both sent careening towards the yellow-brown surface of the planet below. Anger bloomed in the other fighter - Vader probed his mind. Luke hadn't wanted anyone else to die, had preferred to sacrifice his own life ramming him than dying in a dogfight, in the hope that he could take Vader with him into death.

Stupid. So stupidly self-sacrificing and noble towards inferiors who didn't deserve it.

And now he was watching him fall in light and fire and metal because of it.

"If he is truly strong in the Force," Vader said pulling his own fighter into a steep, barely-controlled fall, "this will not end him."

 _What if he's not?_

 _What if he's not as powerful as you think he is? What if he isn't the key you need to overthrow the Emperor, if he's just a useless creature for you to protect? Will you leave him behind? Will you let him die?_

"He's my son," Vader said, but he didn't know if that was an excuse for why Luke _had_ to be strong in the Force, or an explanation for whatever he would do if he wasn't.

But he couldn't dwell on that right now, because the ground of Vrogas Vas was coming up quickly, and the fighters had fallen side by side this entire time, and Vader could feel Luke's presence. He was alive.

They both were.

His son was powerful, indeed.

* * *

"Did you say _Vader_?" Han asked. Leia shot him an irritated look. "As in, _Darth Vader_? The guy who-"

"That's _exactly_ who I mean, Han."

"Then why in the _blazes_ are you going after him?"

"Because it's a chance to take away another of the Emperor's toys." Leia picked up her pace, and despite the fact that Han's legs were much longer than hers, he was forced into a jog. "The base on Vrogas Vas is being mobilised to take him on. That's an entire _company_. But you know it won't be enough." She swallowed. "We're sending reinforcements. I'm going with them."

"I really think, Your Worship, you should stop and reconsider- Wait." Han froze in the middle of the corridor; Leia turned round to glare at him. "Vrogas Vas? That's where Luke went."

Ignoring the stab she felt in her chest as he said it, she kept walking.

Han hurried to catch up. "Leia! Tell me he's not-"

"Luke would understand the situation, Han," she said hesitantly. She knew it was true, but it felt. . . _wrong_. "Vader is the priority here."

"Yeah?" For someone who'd flown off to leave Luke to go up against the Death Star alone only a few months ago, Han looked offended. "Well Vader's not _my_ priority."

She ignored him, and he sighed.

"Chewie, get her ready to fly," he said. "And set course for Vrogas Vas."

"If I may say so, sir," C-3PO said when they were in the cockpit, "I have a rather bad feel-"

"Yeah, trust me, goldenrod," Han snapped back, "we _all_ do."

* * *

Luke groaned as he came to. It didn't seem like he'd been unconscious for more than a few moments - R2 was still squealing in the socket behind him, and his X-wing was still a smoking wreck. He felt uncomfortably hot from the electrical fire that had started in his engine, but he himself seemed unscathed, which was a miracle in itself.

He made to clamber out of his X-wing, trying to shake the fuzziness away from his brain. Something to do with Vader. . .?

The memories snapped back into focus. Yes, Vader was here. Vader was here, and Luke had nearly died, and something told him that if he'd survived, Vader had too.

With that lovely thought in his mind, he began to untangle himself from the crash webbing and stand up straight. The roof of his fighter was cracked open, sunlight and dust pouring in, but the gap wasn't wide enough for him to fit through. He pushed with his arms to try and widen it, grunting with the effort-

-only to yelp as it was ripped away from him and the sudden influx of sun blinded him.

"Skywalker," snapped a deep, mechanical voice; Luke went cold at the sound of it, even as the bulk of the black armour blotted out the sun.

He'd known that Vader was still alive - after all, if _Luke_ had survived the crash, _Vader_ certainly had. But he'd thought - he'd _hoped_ \- that maybe he'd landed a little way away. Far enough away that he could flee.

No such luck.

He opened his mouth - to do what, he didn't know. Snap right back? Plead for mercy? It didn't matter, because Vader's hand seized him by the collar of his flight suit and yanked him up and out of the fighter, so all he could get out was an unintelligible " _Oomph_ ," as he valiantly tried not to bite his own tongue.

Then the breath was forced out of him _again_ as his tailbone collided hard with the sandy ground. He panted, glaring up at Vader, who jumped after him and landed with a heavy _thud_ beside him.

"You didn't have to throw me," Luke grumbled, half to himself, as he rubbed at his shoulder. It ached, but Luke couldn't say if it was from the crash, the throw, or both.

Vader studied him for a moment, helmet cocked as if in thought. Luke felt something probing him through the Force, the way Aunt Beru used to pat him down to check for injuries, before Vader's vocoder spat out a sound that may have been a scoff and turned away.

Luke watched him warily for a moment, the broad shoulders and the armorweave cloak flapping at his heels, then reached for the lightsaber at his side. No sooner had he detached it from his belt than it soared through the air into Vader's hand. The man hadn't even turned his head.

 _Blast it._

But Luke wasn't about to give up there. He hesitantly pressed his palms against the ground and pushed himself to his feet. Once he was up, he made to dust off his hands, only to feel the ground vibrating through the soles of his shoes.

"What. . ."

But he could hear the sound now, the hum of approaching ships, and he turned towards the horizon to see them. Despite his precarious situation, he couldn't quite contain his smile.

"Bombers," he said, recognising the shape of them. He glanced back at Vader, who'd turned to survey the fighters himself. "You'll be dead soon."

 _And me with you,_ was what he didn't say - he wasn't quite at peace with that just yet. Ramming Vader's fighter was one thing, this. . . _Han, Leia, I'm sorry._

He'd glanced to the ground at the thought, so he didn't _see_ the explosions. But he heard them, and when he glanced up. . .

The bombers were gone. All that was left was falling, fiery debris.

Luke whirled on Vader. "What did you _do_?"

The Sith Lord surveyed him dispassionately. "Those bombers were poorly designed. They would not have exploded so easily if the fuel tanks weren't so close to the engines."

"So you _ruptured_ the _fuel tanks_?"

"It was their lives or yours, boy." Luke flinched at the sudden heat in his voice - the Dark Side swelled around him, and he cowered away from it. "While you have proven to see it as a thing of little worth, _I_ do not."

That. . . didn't make any sense.

Vader had been all too willing to kill him during their last. . . encounter. . . on the factory moon, and now it seemed like he was reprimanding him for being reckless? What-

This didn't make any sense.

Luke reached for the Force, as Ben had taught him to do during their all-too-brief training time, but found it. . . unresponsive. Everything around here was tinged with the Light Side, and it was as dazzling to his Force senses as staring into Tatooine's twin suns was to his eyes. He couldn't tell anything from it.

"There is a power in this place," Vader said, like he'd read Luke's mind. Maybe he had - maybe that was just one more time Ben hadn't had the chance to teach him. _Because of Vader._ "I can feel it stirring. This world was once the site of a _Jedi Temple_." He turned to look at Luke - at least, it _looked_ like he did. The eye pieces made eye contact impossible, but his mask did tilt towards him. "I presume that's part of the reason you're here?"

Luke flushed. It wasn't the _reason_ he was here, per se - that had been to run training exercises - but he couldn't deny he'd been interested in investigating the Jedi Temple that was on the planet.

Vader shook his head, irritation spiking in the Force. "You-"

 _"Darth Vader!"_

Luke jumped out of his skin. The noxious gases on this planet made it difficult to see long distances, and he watched with bated breath as several dark figures materialised in the mist. Rebel soldiers.

And from the looks of it, there were a _lot_ of them.

 _"Lay down your weapons!"_ the soldier continued to shout. _"You are surrounded!"_

A breeze blew from behind Luke, ruffling his hair, Vader's cape, and clearing the gases for a brief moment. The mist swept back to show the valley they'd crashed in, the smoking wreckage of their fighters - and the dozens upon dozens of Rebels crouched on the sides and ridges of the valley, their blasters all pointed directly at them.

Logically, Luke knew they were aiming for Vader, not him. That didn't make having that many blasters pointed at him any less nerve-wracking.

 _"Step away, Skywalker!"_

Luke hurried to comply, staggering backwards, away from the Dark Lord and towards the shelter of his battered X-wing.

Vader wouldn't have it.

He snapped one arm behind him, and an invisible force caught Luke around the throat, dragging him out of the fighter's shadow and into Vader's. He smacked his head against the ground as he was deposited in a shuddering heap at Vader's feet, the Sith Lord standing directly over him in a strangely protective stance. His vision went blurry.

Despite the head injury, he could still feel the terror the Rebels around him felt as Vader drew his lightsaber and held it before him, unlit.

 _"Lay down your weapons!"_ the soldier shouted again, panic stretching his voice thin. _"You! Are! Surrounded!"_

Vader drew himself up to his full, intimidating height. "All I am surrounded by is fear," there was a _snap-hiss_ as the saber lit, "and _dead men_."

* * *

"Delta Squad, prepare to roll out."

"Princess Organa, I really wish you'd remain here and monitor the situation remotely," the captain pleaded with her. Leia paid him no notice.

"All right, listen up."

C-3PO cut in then. "Please do listen to him, Your Highness. He seems like a sensible man."

Leia ignored him too in favour of jamming the helmet more firmly on her head. "You all know who it is we're after. You've been briefed on what he can do. Trust me when I say. . . Even your darkest imagining doesn't do him justice." She looked around at the squad she was leading out. "You heard what we saw on the monitors back there - he _just_ killed an entire battalion with their own grenades and one laser-sword. So, first sign of a lightsaber, you _do not hesitate._ You shoot to kill."

"Your Worship!" Han shouted, running to catch up with her. "If _you're_ not going to help find Luke, at least give me a speeder so _I_ can find him."

Leia actually paused at that, looking into Han's earnest face and feeling her heart sink a little. "I _am_ going to find Luke, Han," she told him. "Didn't you hear the reports? Vader captured him."

" _What_?" Han glanced around. "But this task force - it'll destroy Vader. The kid'll die in the crossfire!"

Leia said stiffly, "That's what happens in war. Luke-"

"Would understand, yeah, I know." Han seemed bitterly disappointed. "'Course he would: the kid's crazy. I thought _you_ knew better." He turned to leave, but Leia grabbed his arm.

"Luke's a Jedi."

"Barely."

"The Force is with him. He won't die today." And then, because Han was looking at her, she burst out, "I'll save him."

Han froze. "You will?"

"Of course I will," she said aloud, even as she battled with herself. Kill Vader or save Luke? Save Luke or kill Vader? "He saved me, didn't he? We can do this."

* * *

 _"This is second platoon, reporting heavy casualties."_

 _"Our tanks! He's exploding our tanks! How can he-"_

Leia tightened her grip on her blaster, and took another step. The gases here made it hard to see, but their intel said Vader was close, and her instincts said the same. She couldn't let her guard drop.

Especially not when they were so short-staffed. Most of the squadron had already been wiped out - the only ones left were her and two other men, who shifted more and more nervously with every squeak of the comms.

 _"He can't be stopped! He's not a man, he's-"_

"We have to keep going," she said, ignoring the jitters of her companions. This was it. For Alderaan. For her.

But that didn't make the fear in his voice any less as her companion said, "Y-yes, commander."

 _"Don't come after him! Whatever you do, don't-"_

The comm cut off then, not because the speaker was dead, but because the comlink was. Leia turned, to see her two companions with strangely contorted faces, their hands reaching for their throats as they choked-

She whipped her head back round when she heard the crackle of a lightsaber, and a quiet cry that sounded like-

 _Luke_.

"Well, this is unexpected," said a satisfied voice.

Luke was there, and beside him, holding a lit lightsaber to his neck. . .

Vader.

"Good evening, Princess."

* * *

Vader spat out the title as he watched her freeze, eyes flicking from the boy's terrified face to his mask. She should be a princess, but not of Alderaan. She should be the princess of - _heir_ to - the entire blasted Empire.

She tensed up as he spoke, but the hand holding her blaster was steady, and it was aimed right at his head. "Let him go, Vader."

Against his chest, Luke whimpered slightly. It may have just been a reaction to what his sister said, not actual pain, but Vader moved the lightsaber a hair's breadth away from his neck anyway. It was challenging, remaining still enough to keep from slicing his son's throat open, and he didn't want to take any chances.

He would not kill his children, the way he had their mother.

"Lay down your weapon, Your Highness," he told Leia, keeping his voice flat and monotone. He couldn't afford to confuse them with his own riotous emotions right now: he just needed to get them away from this planet, these Rebels.

He'd come here looking for his son.

It was clearly the will of the Force that that should have led to his daughter seeking him out as well.

But Leia didn't react to his statement. If anything, she lifted her blaster higher. He saw the quick war play out across her face: shoot him, or save her friend? Ultimately, though, she remained as predictable as any Rebel and chose the latter. She didn't shoot him - she loved her brother more than she hated her father.

That was a weakness he would have to rid her of.

"Let. Luke. Go."

"You have nothing to bargain with, Your Highness," he replied, lifting his own lightsaber in response. Luke hissed out a breath as it was pressed closer to his neck, no doubt frying some of the hairs by now. The fear he leaked into the Force came in eddies and swirls, but was not insignificant; Vader frowned behind his mask. A little fear of their father would foster respect, but this amount was impractical. He would have to remedy that later.

He lifted her gaze back to the Princess. "Lay down your weapon, Your Highness," he said again, tone chilly. Still held in place, Luke shivered against him, and he saw Leia's arms twitch as well.

"Or what?" she asked, false bravado in her voice. She knew it was false, and she must know that he knew, so Vader didn't understand the charade. But perhaps it was the only thing keeping her together. "You won't kill him - you've got a thirty thousand credit alive-only bounty out on him!"

Very pointedly, Vader tilted his mask to survey the boy. "Is that so?" he asked slowly. He watched Luke's eyes go wide.

Then he dropped the lightsaber, where it sawed through the delicate muscles and bones of his son's wrist.

Luke screamed, and Leia screamed at the sight of him, but it didn't quite drown out the _thud_ of Luke's hand hitting the ground. Vader pulled the boy back into the previous position, with the lightsaber against his throat, but Luke was clutching the stump of his arm with his only remaining hand, violent sobs racking his shoulders, and Vader thought he might slit his own throat on the lightsaber if he didn't steady himself.

"Drop your weapon!" he thundered at Leia, who was still staring wide-eyed at her friend. He didn't have time for this, and the desperation was seeping into his voice.

It was clear that the Princess did not want to see what he would do when truly desperate.

Hands trembling, she dropped the blaster.

"Good," he said, marginally calmer. "Now, _sleep_."

Mind tricks were not of the Dark Side, but he infused as much suggestion into the word as possible. Leia swayed on her feet, before her eyes snapped open again, face twisting in fury-

" _Sleep_ ," he said again, and she slept. He caught her with the Force before she hit the ground.

Good. That was good. He extinguished his lightsaber, and released the boy.

The moment Luke was no longer supported by his father, he fell to his knees. He kept staring at the stump of his lost hand, kept clutching it, like he didn't truly believe what had happened.

He turned his tear-stained face up to look at Vader.

He found he didn't like looking at that gaze. "You as well, Skywalker. _Sleep_."

Luke wasn't as immune to mental suggestions as his sister. He hit the ground on the first try.

* * *

The first thing Luke was aware of was the whirring of some sort of machine. Then, the rhythmic rasp of his own breathing, and somebody else's, and. . . somebody else's.

Instinctively, somehow, he knew he wasn't with the Rebellion.

He lay very still, trying to keep feigning sleep as his mind whirred. The last thing he remembered was. . .

Flying drills above Vrogas Vas.

Crash landing on the planet.

And-

 _Vader_.

The memories barrelled into him at once. Vader had- What had he done? Knocked out Leia. Knocked out him, as well?

He tensed up, trying to clench his fists - only to find one unresponsive. Of course. Vader had _cut off his hand_. He sucked in a breath, forgetting, for a moment, to pretend to still be asleep.

A moment was enough.

A shrill screech stabbed into his ears at the movement and he jerked upright, slapping his hands over his ears. The screeching was short, but it did its job.

A voice that sounded unnervingly like C-3PO said, "What is it _now_ , Beetee? Mistress Aphra was just upgrading my torture instruments!"

Luke groaned, and opened his eyes. For a moment he thought it _was_ C-3PO standing in front of him, but no. This protocol droid was silver, with eerie red eyes, even if their voices were the same, their mannerisms identical.

"Oh!" The droid staggered closer. "One of the little Rebels is awake. Hello, scum." He offered his right hand. "I am Triple-Zero, a protocol droid specialised in etiquette, translations, customs and torture."

Luke shut his mouth; it had been hanging open. ". . .hi."

He reached to accept the handshake, before he noticed the stump of his right hand. It was covered in a bacta patch, and some drug had been administered so it didn't hurt, but there was still _no hand_.

He sighed, and reached out with his left, but before he could shake hands, a woman's voice cut through the fog in his brain. "Triple-Zero, Lord Vader wants these two alive and unharmed. No murder, no torture, and _no electric shocks_."

"I think what you mean is 'no fun'," Triple-Zero muttered to himself. He retracted his hand as he said louder, "Best not do the handshake, then. I might find myself routing a fatal shock through your palm."

Luke dropped his hand quickly.

He lowered his gaze as well, only to raise it just as quickly when the woman came over. She studied him through narrowed eyes, brown hair hidden by the goggles on her head, but what Luke noticed about her first was the tattoo of circuits she had up her right arm, the black ink stark against her brown skin.

"So you're Skywalker, huh," she commented, looking him up and down. "You know, with how interested Vader is in you, I expected you to be. . ." _Older. Smarter. Tougher._

 _More._

Luke was used to hearing it, but that didn't stop him from bristling internally.

"Yeah, well," he said, voice a little brittle, as he pushed himself to his feet. "I am who I am."

The woman gave a noncommittal hum. "I'm Doctor Aphra, by the way," she said. "You and your friend are aboard my ship, the _Ark Angel_."

"My friend. . ." Something tightened in Luke's chest. "Leia!"

He whirled round to look her, and had located her lying on the mat next to the one he'd been lying on as Aphra said, "Don't worry, she's fine. Had to use a drug on both of you to keep you knocked out for this long; she's smaller than you are, so it probably wore off quicker on you. She'll be awake in a moment, then Vader wants to talk to you."

Luke froze up at the words. He'd known they were there because of Vader, known this woman almost definitely worked for him, but. . . "What does he want with us?"

Aphra shrugged. "Beats me. All I know is, he's been hunting _you_ for a while, and decided to bring the Princess along for the ride. I'm lucky he got you on Vrogas Vas, else it'd have been my head rolling, but I don't know why."

"You have your suspicions, though," he deduced.

She gave a tight smile. "Perceptive. However, I like breathing, so I'm not about to go flapping my mouth to random Rebel scum." She gestured around the room. "Here. Make yourself comfortable. Vader's not gonna talk to you until the Princess wakes up, so might as well entertain yourself while you're at it."

"You could even play a few games of holochess with Beetee and me!" Triple-Zero said.

"Don't play holochess with them," Aphra said. "Not unless you're prepared to make sure you lose, or get the blood drained out of you for winning."

Luke swallowed. "How. . . nice."

"Isn't it?" Triple-Zero said, almost mournfully. "Beetee here and I are professionals." He gestured just behind Luke, who turned to see what looked like a silver astromech with a crimson optical sensor. It beeped, and Luke realised that was where the screeching had come from earlier.

His head throbbed at the thought of it.

"Right. . ." He glanced around the rest of the room. Aside from the roll mats laid out of the floor for him and Leia, the place was cluttered only with computer terminals and droid parts. He couldn't help himself: he made a beeline for one of them. "So, what's all this?"

"I reactivate droids for a living, and sell them," Aphra replied, watching him tinker with the parts. "These two murderbots, for example, answer to me and Lord Vader."

"So Vader's one of your clients?" Luke asked, frowning.

"At the moment, he's my boss." Aphra stepped up to him, and took the droid parts from his hands. "I run errands for him. And, more recently, watch over you two, so get yourself hurt and it's my neck on the line."

"I wasn't going to get myself hurt," he protested.

Aphra put the droid parts down on the table, hard. They snapped together tightly, like some sort of trap. If Luke had been holding it while that happened, he'd have lost his fingers.

"Sure," she said dryly, "because messing around in a workshop full of murderbots speaks volumes about your sense of self-preservation. Vader would-"

"Vader," said a new voice, "can go to hell."

Aphra spun round with a dazzling smile. "Princess! So glad to see you're awake!"

Leia stood upright, sharp and stoic, despite the fact that she'd just woken from being drugged after being kidnapped. Her hair hadn't even come undone - Luke had to marvel at the durability of Alderaanian braids.

"Lord Vader's been so excited to talk to you!"

Luke met Leia's eye - _are you alright? Are you hurt?_

 _I'm fine,_ she nodded back, before drawing herself up again. "Well then?" she said to Aphra, voice frosty, "Let's not keep Lord Vader waiting."

* * *

Vader was in the cockpit of the ship when they met him. Leia hadn't stopped glowering the whole way, and when she finally set eyes on the armoured cyborg, her glower became so much hotter that Luke genuinely began to sweat. He was angry at the cyborg too, of _course_ he was, but-

He wasn't afraid to admit he was _terrified_ of how this meeting was going to go.

Aphra ushered them into the seats behind the pilot's and co-pilot's chair, and Vader, sitting in the pilot's chair, spun the seat round to face them.

For a long time, no one said anything. The only sound was the _hiss_ of the automated door as Aphra left the room.

Vader still didn't speak, the continual rasp of his respirator unnerving.

It was Leia who broke the silence, and snapped, "What do you _want_ , murderer?"

Luke winced, despite his own anger, sure there would be some form of retaliation, but Vader still didn't move. Just kept watching them, taking in every tiny detail.

Finally, another eon later, Vader spoke. "Skywalker," he said. "What do you know of your father? Your family?"

Luke sucked in a breath at the unexpected question. "What?" he asked, suddenly much, _much_ angrier. How _dare_ Vader talk about his father? "Trying to make sure there aren't any other Skywalkers you need to kill off?"

"What do you mean?" Vader hadn't moved, but there was something dark and forbidding about his voice suddenly. Luke shivered, the already-chilly cockpit becoming practically freezing. He imagined he could see his breath crystallising on the air as he shouted.

That didn't stop him from shouting. "I _mean_ that _you killed him_!" He stood up, but a tug of his arm by Leia made him sit down again. It was best not to appear as some sort of threat.

"And _who_ told you _that_?" The danger in Vader's voice had only increased; there was the creak of leather as he clenched his fists.

"Ben did."

" _Kenobi_." The co-pilot's seat next to Vader crumpled, as though it was being squeezed by an unseen force. "I should have known."

Then Vader turned to Leia. "What about you, Princess?" The frozen anger in his voice gave way to a sneer at her title. "What happened to your parents?"

Leia lifted her chin. "I think you know full well what happened to my parents, Lord Vader," she said, loudly and coldly, "considering you were there when they were blown up!"

"No." The word dropped into the quiet cockpit like a stone. "I mean your _real parents_."

"My birth parents died during the Clone Wars," she snapped, "but that doesn't matter. My real parents died with Alderaan."

"No," Vader said, "they did _not_."

Leia frowned, then opened her mouth, but Vader spoke before she could say anything.

"You have been lied to, young ones," he said. "Your father is not dead, Luke, nor is your _real_ father, Leia." They both flinched when he used their chosen names. "And they are one and the same."

They glanced at each other.

Leia looked sceptical, so it was Luke who said, "So we're. . ."

"Twins," Vader confirmed. "Your mother was Padmé Amidala, Senator and Former Queen of Naboo. And your father is still alive."

Luke's left hand unconsciously sought out Leia's right. He didn't know what was coming next - didn't want to know what was coming next. _I have a bad feeling about this_. . .

" _I_ am your father."

* * *

"You really don't believe this bantha poodoo, do you?" Leia asked him, as she paced the length of the room they'd been put in. As far as she knew, they were still on the _Ark Angel_ , as Luke had called it, but it was a different room to the one they'd woken up in. Vader had thrown them in here earlier after his little speech and locked the door. "It's ridiculous. It defies logic. It-"

"Feels true," Luke finished quietly, staring at the ground., rubbing the stump of his wrist. It had been patched up with bacta, and there was talk of getting him a prosthetic, but Leia was still incensed Vader had cut it off in the first place.

Something squeezed her heart. "Luke. . ." She sat down on the mat next to him, and touched his arm. "He's not your father." _He's not the father you've hero-worshipped. Don't let him kill your dreams._

"Leia," he said, "it _feels true_."

She retracted her hand. "What do you mean?"

"I _mean_. . ." He took a ragged breath. "I know it's true. The same way I knew to turn off the targeting computer over the Death Star, the same way I know we're siblings. . . He's our father." He gave a bitter laugh, then gestured to the datapad lying on the other side of the room, where she'd thrown it. Repeatedly. "He even gave us test results to prove it."

"Which can be faked," she said curtly, but she didn't really believe it. Against her better judgement, everything was coming back. All the times her father had shown reluctance at letting her go to Coruscant, the tension in his shoulders when he'd been in contact with Vader, the way he'd asked her, once, to never, _ever_ , talk to the man without telling him first. . .

Luke lifted his head to look at her. "You don't think we're twins?"

"No, I _do_ , I-" She broke off, swallowing. Because she _did_. She knew that was true, with the same intuition she'd always known when someone was lying, back in the Senate. "I _do_. I know that's true. And it explains a lot."

A small smile tugged at his lips. _Thank goodness_. "It does."

"But- I just." She took a deep breath. "Bail Organa was my father, in all the ways that matter. Anakin Skywalker was yours. That monstrosity," she jabbed a finger at the door, "has no claim on us. _Especially_ if he doesn't have the honesty to call himself by his real name."

"I know that, Leia," he said. "But it doesn't change how I feel."

Her hand fell to her side. When she spoke, it was in a neutral, measured tone. "And how do you feel?"

Luke swallowed several times. He couldn't quite meet her eye as he said, "I want to accept his offer."

She stood up. "You want to turn traitor?!"

" _No_." The way he said it calmed her slightly; he was vehement enough that she knew he was telling the truth.

But it wasn't enough. "So, you want to accept his offer of forsaking the Alliance, overthrowing the Emperor, and ruling the galaxy as a family, and _that's not treason_?"

"I want to accept _part_ of his offer," he amended. "I want to overthrow the Emperor."

"And have yourself or Vader replace him. Rule the galaxy as father and son."

"I don't _want_ the galaxy!" he shouted. She took a step back, shocked at the increase in volume. She hadn't realised he was that close the snapping.

"Then _what do you want?"_ she pushed further, further, trying to get to the bottom of this.

He said it quietly, half to himself, and brought his knees up to his chin as he said it. "I want a father."

All the anger drained out of her. She sighed. "Luke. . ."

"We could still cooperate with the Alliance while doing it," he barrelled on. "You could go back to High Command and keep chipping away, keep his attention diverted, while Vader and I plot to cut off the head of the snake."

 _Vader_ , Luke called him. Despite his words, he couldn't quite bring himself to call him _Father_ just yet.

Leia folded her arms, suddenly cold. "And what about after? How do you know he'll give the galaxy to the Alliance after the Emperor's dead? That he won't just seize power for himself?"

"He won't seize it for himself," Luke said confidently, but his voice still shook. For a moment, Lei wondered why he was pretending to be fine - why he was pretending that he wasn't just barely holding himself together. "You heard him. He wants to give it to one of us."

"Your point? That's still a dictatorship."

"We overthrow the Emperor," Luke said. "Give you the title of Empress. Then you can set about making all the changes you want to make, only now you'll have the political power to do it. Then you, with all your political experience, can slowly bring back the Senate, reinstate democracy, dissolve the powers of the governors and yourself. Prosecute those guilty of corruption. Your last act could be reinstating the Republic and resigning as Empress."

Leia took a deep breath. She still didn't like the idea of Luke being that close to Vader, but. . . She liked the outcome. She couldn't deny that she was frustrated with how slowly democracy could work, or how little political figures were able to do about the thriving underworld and the suffering it caused - Enfys Nest's bad of marauders being an example of the only forms of reformation that had been happening. And as Empress, she could make all the changes she wanted. . .all at the same time as bringing back the Republic she was fighting for.

She sighed. "Fine." Then she jabbed a finger in his face. "But _I'm_ going back to the Alliance."

Luke grinned. "That's great, then," he said. "All that's left now is to convince Vader."

* * *

"You are _not_ going back to the Alliance."

Luke could feel the indignation bristling off of Leia. He held his breath, closed his eyes, and counted upwards. _One, two, three-_

"Says who?" Leia asked in a silky voice.

Vader leaned forwards in the pilot's seat and jabbed a finger at her. "You are _mine_ , and I will not allow you to return to that pathetic excuse for a Rebellion."

Even Luke was getting defensive at that, but Leia. . .

Well.

Leia was apoplectic.

"I do _not_ belong to you," she hissed, jabbing her finger at him, "nor do I belong _with_ you, at your side, or _on_ your side. I belong with the Alliance." She jerked her chin at Luke. "We both do."

He nodded his agreement.

"You both belong at my side," Vader spat back, "as you would have been had Kenobi and Organa not kidnapped you."

" _Kidnapped_?" Leia's voice quietened suddenly, and Luke was, inexplicably, terrified. "I'm sure. Certainly, I'm sure they weren't just trying to keep safe two children whose mother had just died, and whose father might as well have. In fact, I recognised the name Padmé Amidala when you told us," she added. Luke's muscles went tight with foreboding; Vader seemed to have frozen solid at the name. "I racked my brain trying to remember. Queen and Senator of Naboo? I've studied her in politics."

"Do _not_ speak of her," Vader growled, but Luke knew he wasn't the only one who heard the pang of sadness in his voice. Leia barrelled on, using it.

"And do you know what I remember?" she continued, her voice passive aggressive. "She died pregnant, didn't she? Supposedly, at least. It was made into a propaganda ploy by the Empire, wasn't it? Because she'd been killed by a Jedi."

Luke sucked in a breath. Killed by-

By a _Jedi_?

"But it wasn't a Jedi who killed her, was it?" Leia said, voice deadly soft. "It was you."

Vader was silent for one, two, three cycles of his respirator.

Then the already-crushed co-pilot's chair was wrenched off the floor and flung at the viewport. Luke flinched reflexively, even as he got the feeling that Vader was taking great pains not to hit them.

Sure enough, the man said exactly that into the silence that followed it, feeling the tension in the room rise: "I will not hurt you."

Luke made to clench his right fist, except, of course, it _wasn't there._ "I find that hard to believe."

"As do I," Leia said. " _Especially_ if you're going to make us stay with you. Luke, we've already established, is willing to do so, but _I am not_. I would sooner die than be held by you, and I will escape anyway."

"I will not allow that to happen," Vader said.

"You can't stop me," Leia bit back. "And the harder you make it for me to escape, the harder it will be for me to escape _alive_." Vader stilled at the word. Luke could sense him caving, feel his resolve weaken at the concept - possessive or not, he _did not want them dead_ \- but it was Leia's next words that cemented it.

"And then you'll be at fault for killing Padmé's daughter, just as you're at fault for killing her."

There was a break in Vader's breathing, like he'd had to take a breath out of sync with it. He flinched back slightly at the words.

His own were no less vehement. "I will give you the _galaxy_ -"

"Then give it to me," Leia said. "By all means, _give it to me._ But I will not spend any more time in your company than I have to. So you can either have two living, estranged children. . .or two dead ones."

Luke shivered at the thought. He couldn't say that he would be willing to follow along with what she proposed, but he would pretend anyway; Vader had to think he would, or this persuasion would never work.

"So, it's your choice, _Father_ ," Leia spat the word. "Which will you pick?"

* * *

They dropped out of hyperspace less than a day later - above _Tatooine_ , of all places. Vader gave Leia enough credits to hire transport to the Rebel Fleet, and returned her comlink. He also returned Luke's comlink to him while he was at it - _"How else are you supposed to contact your sister, and inform her of any changes to the plan? Neither of you have any decent Force training to speak of."_

So Leia was left on the sandy surface of the planet where her brother and her father had grown up, and, as she watched the _Ark Angel_ soar out of the atmosphere, she shuddered despite the heat, wondering if she hadn't made a mistake in letting Luke go with Vader.

* * *

Leia wouldn't see Luke again for eighteen months - not until Vader deemed Luke well-trained enough to join him in his coup against the Emperor. During that time, the Rebellion gathered their resources, even as Vader was promoted to Commander of the Imperial Fleet and gathered his, until the time was right, whereupon they struck.

Vader was briefing Sidious on the details of the sudden influx in Rebel attacks when the old man suddenly started choking, choking, choking, only to have a blue lightsaber thrust through him from behind. It had taken Luke and Vader some effort to defeat the Red Guards after that, but they'd managed.

And Palpatine's Empire didn't last another eighteen months after his death.

Leia was a ruthless Empress. War criminals were put on trial, and many were executed or imprisoned for life. Vader was let off with a slightly lighter sentence of being exiled from the Core and Inner Rim, due to the new humanitarian efforts he had partaken in (after Luke persuaded him to) during the three years since Vrogas Vas.

The Empress formally resigned her post after those three years, having already reinstated the Senate, fired most of the regional governors, and introduced new laws to improve the quality of life for most beings in the galaxy.

And so, the Empire fell.


	2. Bail Organa, 19 BBY

**There's a scene from the Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith comic series in here, so if you haven't read it, all you need to know is that Vader hasn't been formally introduced to the masses yet, and his sudden appearance led to several assassination attempts being made on him.**

 **Also, I like the theory that Padmé died because Palpatine used the japor snippet she had to somehow drain the life from her, so that's what I used while writing this, and that's why she didn't die in this.**

 **Disclaimer: I (obviously) don't own Star Wars.**

* * *

 _Bail Organa_

Everyone could die.

It was a truth that continuously dogged Bail Organa's thoughts during the war, on Christophsis, on Toydaria: He'd seen too many needless deaths, seen too many clones give their lives as if they were nothing in order to save him, seen nigh-infallible Jedi bow under the strain of deflecting too much blasterfire from too many droids.

And if ten thousand of that holy order could be wiped out in one moment, leaving the galaxy in the state he saw it in now, well that just proved his point. Anyone could die, at any place, any time.

It was not a comforting thought to have when he could hear Padmé screaming from the next room.

He winced at the sound, and Breha reached out to grasp his hand. His wife offered him a smile, but it didn't help. Nothing could.

Because Padmé, his colleague, his confidant, his _friend,_ could die any second.

Bail had insisted they bring her to Alderaan. Had insisted that his friend receive only the very best medical care for herself and her child - and the very best medical care could only be found on Alderaan.

(It could, arguably, also be found on Coruscant, but there was no way they were taking Padmé there. Not when that was strictly under their new Emperor's control.)

That didn't mean that on the journey over he hadn't paced and worried and stressed. Doubts ran in circles behind him. What if she didn't survive the long journey to Alderaan? Would it be better for her to get sub-par treatment on a closer world, or take the risk and reap the rewards? And what if her child was born early?

Padmé screamed again, and he tensed, Breha's attempts to pat him on the shoulder useless as her hand fell away. She was always so much stronger than him, so much more in control, but Padmé was her friend too, and he could feel her resolve starting to break.

"No," she murmured, though he wasn't sure he was meant to hear it. "Don't take Padmé. . . Don't take her now. . ."

Swallowing, he reached into his pocket and draw out the pendant he'd removed from around her neck. He'd seen it there earlier, when Obi-Wan had carried her off the ship, tangled in her collar. He remembered seeing her wear it all throughout the war, in the Senate, but he'd removed it the moment she lay down in the med bay. It could get caught, he reasoned to himself, choke her, cut off her air supply, and even if that didn't kill her, he didn't want to give her flashbacks to what had apparently been a very similar turn of events on Mustafar.

But he knew the real reason behind the fact he'd removed it was the _feeling_ he got around it, like it was sentient and had malicious intent. He didn't want that anywhere near Padmé and her child.

He turned it over in his hands now, squeezing the wooden charm tightly. He didn't know where it was from, nor what the symbols meant - were they sacred on Naboo? - but now that he'd already taken it, he was doubting his decision to. Padmé had always treated it like some sort of good luck charm; what would she do, without the comfort of its familiar weight against her chest?

He squeezed the snipped tighter, and Breha laid her hand atop his. "She'll be fine, Bail."

He was too tightly wound to give an answer, but he didn't need to. Because that was when Obi-Wan left the birthing room to talk to them.

"She's alive," he assured them, before Bail could ask. "She's alive and well. As are the twins."

Bail gave a sigh of relief, and he felt Breha sag with him. Padmé was well.

She would live.

And-

"Twins?"

Obi-Wan smiled - the first time Bail had seen him do so since Order 66. "Luke and Leia," he said. "Fraternal."

And then Bail realised he was crying. The tears ran down his face unashamedly, and he laughed in the clear Alderaanian air, even as the sun crested the horizon and sent shards of soft amber light to illuminate the snippet he held in his hands.

He slipped the necklace back into his pocket, no longer afraid. Padmé was alive.

The Jedi were dead. The Republic was dead.

But Padmé Amidala lived.

Hope lived.

* * *

Padmé was tired, and she was sad, but she didn't think she'd loved anyone as much as she did the children huddled against her chest.

"What happened to Anakin?" she asked quietly, careful not to wake Luke or Leia or jostle them too much.

Obi-Wan hesitated, his conflict colouring his face. He opened his mouth-

"And tell the truth. Don't you dare lie to me about what happened to my husband."

Obi-Wan shut his mouth. Swallowed.

"Master Yoda didn't want me to tell you, but. . ."

She fixed him with a glare.

". . .Anakin's still alive."

She nodded. She'd expected as much. Everyone, Republic and Separatist alike, knew that the Hero With No Fear was not an easy man to kill. "So what happened to him? He turned to the Dark Side? Where is he?"

"I don't know," Obi-Wan admitted. "Coruscant, I assume. Bail's contacts reported seeing a badly burned man with three limbs missing being escorted in a med pod to the Chancellor's personal medical facilities, with the Chancellor, now Emperor," Padmé grimaced at the word, "walking beside him. I don't know what happened after that - or how they're going to heal him."

"What did you _do_ to him?"

Obi-Wan winced, and he said slowly, "I. . . cut off his three natural limbs and left him to burn on the shores of the lava river on Mustafar."

She looked away from him at the image that sprung to mind, and unconsciously hugged her babies closer. "Obi-Wan. . ."

"I know," he said quietly. "I know it was monstrous. He was my brother, and instead of giving him a quick, merciful death, I left him to a life of torment and pain." He blinked hard, and Padmé realised with dismay that he was tearing up. _No, Obi-Wan, don't cry, don't cry, you're the strongest person I know, if you start crying I'll start crying and then-_

"But I couldn't do it," Obi-Wan finished, wiping his eyes on the cuffs of his robe. "I couldn't kill him."

Padmé held her babies even tighter. As if he was picking up on the misery in the room, Luke stirred and started wailing. Leia, sensing her brother's cries, did the same a few moments later.

"No. . ." She whispered to them, doing her best to rock them from her sitting position in the bed. Her abdomen still hurt too much for her to get up.

"Here," Obi-Wan said, and took Luke into his arms. He murmured soothing things to him, Padmé doing the same to Leia, and she felt a rush of peace waft over them, no doubt Obi-Wan doing his best to calm them down.

It was a good few minutes before it worked, and the children settled back into sleep. And it was a few minutes after that before anyone spoke again, the silence heavy with everything unsaid.

Padmé was a senator. It was her job to confront issues no one wanted to discuss. So it was her who asked, "What are we going to do now?"

"I had some ideas about that," Bail said, walking into the bedroom along with Breha. She smiled at them both, unfathomably grateful to them for all they'd done for her, and they smiled back, pulling up chairs around her bed. Obi-Wan did the same and sat himself down, Luke asleep and content in his lap.

Padmé glanced round, sure they were missing someone, and Bail explained, "Master Yoda left for exile yesterday. He knew the twins were safe with you, and he couldn't afford to linger anywhere the Sith could sense him for too long."

She nodded. "I understand. So," she said in a forcibly upbeat tone, "what's been happening since I was," _choked, betrayed, nearly killed,_ "incapacitated."

Bail opened his mouth. Foreboding prickled along Padmé's back at the look on his face. "The Chancellor," and there he seemed to take a vicious satisfaction in refusing to call him _Emperor_ , "has arrested sixty three senators on the charges of treason." He paused, grimaced, and said, "Most of them were members of the Delegation of Two Thousand, including Ivor Drake and Tanner Cadaman."

Padmé closed her eyes. "Oh." The word was an exhale. "Is there anything we can do to help them?"

Bail shook his head. "Not without being branded as traitors ourselves. We're only safe because we're popular senators, and Palpatine thinks you're dead."

She frowned. "Who thinks I'm dead? Who knows I'm _alive_?"

"The only one other than the people in the room who knows for sure that you're alive is Master Yoda. As for the people who think you're dead, we assume Palpatine and-" he swallowed, "-Anakin do. At least, we hope so. Otherwise, there hasn't been any official announcement, so as far as anyone else on Coruscant and Naboo know, you've just gone missing for several days."

"And my parents? My sister?" Her voice was quiet.

Bail shook his head. "We haven't told them you're alive."

Padmé nodded. "Okay," she said, taking a deep breath. "So, what can we do to help the others in the Delegation? Contact Mon? Warn them?"

"Actually. . ." Bail trailed off.

"What?" Padmé asked.

"We all know that Palpatine is evil," he said. "He's the Sith Lord the Jedi warned us about. He probably orchestrated the war in order to gain power, and he manipulated us into giving him more and more of it as the war went on. He's responsible for billions of deaths, has no interest in fairness or democracy, and he _will_ cause more suffering if he and his regime are allowed to continue."

Padmé tilted her head and fixed him with a look. She knew when someone was trying to persuade her of something, even if that person was as skilled an orator as Bail Organa. "What are you saying?"

"I've requested reports from all over the galaxy," he said. "My people are rescuing as many Jedi as they can," he gave Obi-Wan a nod of acknowledgement, "and we're talking to senators and politicians and other people with influence, looking to assemble a group of people who see Palpatine's evil as well as we do. It's only the first steps, but. . ."

"The first steps in what?" Padmé asked bluntly. "Stop beating around the bush, Bail, and tell me."

"A rebellion against the Empire," he said. "The deposing of Palpatine from his throne."

It was Obi-Wan who broke the silence after the momentous statement. "Are you out of your mind?"

"If we wait, the Empire will only grow stronger," Breha chimed in, holding onto her husband's hand in a show of solidarity. "If we start gathering allies and resources now, we can make a difference."

"I agree," Padmé said, looking Obi-Wan in the eye. "And I want in. Not as a secretive agent, on the run from the Empire. But exactly as I am: the Senator of Naboo."

There was a stunned silence for a moment. Padmé clutched Leia to her chest as if to brace for the onslaught that was coming.

And come it did. Obi-Wan's "Are you mad?" mixed with Breha's "Excuse me?" and Bail's shocked squawk to make for a very loud and indignant moment.

"You'll be _killed_ Padmé," Obi-Wan said. "Or arrested for treason. You weren't just a member of the Delegation - you were a _founder_. Palpatine will have you assassinated or arrested, and you're no good to us dead." His gaze flicked down to Luke. "Or to your children."

She gritted her teeth as he mentioned them, brushing her thumb over Leia's head and seeking out Luke with her eyes, but she barrelled on, "I won't be assassinated. Or arrested. The Emperor-" she ignored everyone's flinch at the title; it was who he was, and this entire endeavour was about changing that. "-won't want to upset or alienate Anakin. Once he knows I'm alive, Anakin won't let me die. You _know_ that's true," she added to Obi-Wan.

"But Padmé," Breha argued, "if you're on Coruscant before Anakin recovers from what Obi-Wan did to him, Anakin won't be able to save you, and won't ever know what happened to you. And do you really want to put the twins in harm's way?"

The twins again. Were they really these three's main argument for why she shouldn't do this?

"Do _not_ use my children as leverage against me," she said, voice low and cold. "Make no mistake, I am doing this _for_ the twins, so they have a better galaxy to grow up in than Palpatine could give them. If all goes according to plan, I'll only be on Coruscant for a few months at most, and I'm sure my sister could take care of them during that time."

Breha shook her head. "Your family on Naboo won't have the resources to keep them safe against potential assassins," she said. "We can take care of them here, on Alderaan."

Padmé nodded, knowing the woman was being truthful.

"So, what's your plan?"

 _Here we go_. Padmé sat up straighter, and lowered Leia into her lap, so she could gesture more dramatically. "As you said, Bail, I'm a beloved senator. The Emperor will want to use my death to fuel public opinion in his favour. My prediction is that he'll claim I was killed by Jedi."

Obi-Wan winced, but he didn't disagree.

"So we wait for him to make that statement," she continued. "We wait for Anakin to come back into the public picture, because Palpatine is _not_ going to let a propaganda opportunity like him being supported by the Hero With No Fear go to waste. It should take a few weeks at most. And then I come out of hiding, claim I was recovering from a traumatic experience and a subsequently traumatic birth, and call the man out on his lies.

"I accuse Anakin of the deed and ruin his image in the eyes of the people. Palpatine's Empire is already in question. That will make them weak, and then, Bail, you can gather your resources and your allies and your ships and attempt the coup I know you've been planning."

"I am a pacifist," Bail said defensively.

"As am I," she replied, "but I'm still prepared to wield a blaster when I need to." She looked around the room. "Is everything clear?"

Everyone nodded - except Obi-Wan.

"I do have one observation," he said. "This will ruin your relationship with Anakin."

She wanted to wince at it, but she schooled her expression into an emotionless mask. It was true. "I know."

Obi-Wan nodded slowly. Carefully. "And you're sure you're willing to do that?"

"As sure as you were when you cut off his limbs." He flinched at the reminder. "Anakin ruined our relationship himself when he nearly killed me and the twins. The blame is squarely on his shoulders."

She closed her eyes. "But. . . "

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow. "But?"

She took a deep breath. "I believe there's still good in him."

There was a beat, then, "Padmé, Anakin is-"

"I know what he is. And I know there's still good in him." She brushed her thumb over Leia's head again as a reminder to herself of it. "When the time comes, he _will_ side with us. I am certain of that."

"Us?" Obi-Wan asked, a sad smile on his lips.

She closed her eyes. "Me," she conceded. "He will side with me."

Breha cleared her throat. "Anakin aside," she said. "I agree with Padmé. It's a solid plan. We just need to wait for the right moment to strike, and make sure she's in perfect health to carry it out."

"This is risky." Padmé shot Obi-Wan a glare, and he smiled. "But it could work."

She raised an eyebrow at Bail. "It seems to be the best course of action."

"Then we're decided." She smiled down at Leia, who opened her big brown eyes to stare up at her, waving a chubby fist.

"This is a lot of responsibility for you to carry alone, Padmé," Breha commented, dark brows knitting together in a frown. "Are you sure you'll be alright?"

"I'll be fine." Past events flashed to mind - the Naboo Crisis, the First Battle of Geonosis, her illegal meetings with Mina Bonteri, the mission with Clovis on Scipio. . . "It's hardly the first time, after all."

* * *

The fear in the room was tangible to those attuned to the Force. The terror of the officers lined up in orderly rows fed the Dark Side, and Ana- _Vader_ clutched it around him, feeling the power of it ebb and flow and swell, as he surveyed the gathered officers.

Their expressions were fixed and neutral, their postures impeccable, but that wasn't what he noted as he observed them.

Someone in here was behind the attempts on his life.

And he had no way of knowing which of the officers, all of whom had fought their way up through the ranks during the Clone Wars, all of whom would be bitter at his apparently instantaneous rise to power, it was.

Standing just in front of him on the dais, the Emperor opened his mouth to speak. "You are the elite officers of my Imperial military. You will form the core of our efforts to transform this galaxy into a place of peace, stability and prosperity for all."

Vader had heard Palpatine give these sort of speeches before, and Pad- _she_ had explained to him what he was doing. How it started with flattery, to win the crowd's respect and goodwill, then led into the unpleasant stuff later, either for effect, or to show a contrast.

Here, Vader knew, it was for both.

"Still, I understand that our shared vision remains new, and perhaps some elements of the hierarchy remain unclear."

His tone shifted then, from warm understanding and pride to a hardness that indicated no objections would be accepted.

"It is time to eliminate any confusion."

And Vader could feel the change in the officers as they heard the shift, and the foreboding that began to build in them, especially as Palpatine - _Sidious_ \- gestured towards him, and he took a step forward.

"This is Lord Vader."

The name dropped like a pebble into the silence. The Emperor didn't allow for too much deliberation on it before he continued.

"He speaks with my voice. A command from him is a command from me." He turned his head to give the illusion that he was looking each individual person in the eye. "Pass this information down to your men. All must understand."

And then the Emperor stepped back, and Vader stepped up to take his place.

He was silent for three cycles of his respirator, feeling the tension in the room build, then said, "Ferro. Bingan. Strephi. Azoras. Barokki."

There was a particularly large spike of fear when he said that last name, and he smiled under the mask, no matter how much it pulled on the still-painful wounds on his face.

"Step forward."

Hands trembling, trying to conceal their terror as much as possible, they did.

"Two attempts have been made on my life. Evidence suggests a conspiracy within the Imperial officer corps."

The fear increased even more, if that was possible, the officers wondering if he thought they were at fault.

He didn't. But that wasn't the point.

"I do not yet know the precise individuals behind these attempts. . ." he admitted, feeling the tension in the room relax infinitesimally, ". . .although I have my suspicions.

"It does not matter." His voice was dark and threatening. "I will survive. Every time, I will survive."

He reached out a hand. "But five of you, chosen at random. . ."

He closed his hand into a fist, dragging the five officers into the air by the throat and snapping their necks.

". . .will not."

After that introduction, he didn't need a conclusion. He just strode to the edge of the dais, and out of the room altogether.

* * *

It was three weeks before Padmé found herself well enough to leave the med bay, and another week before Bail called her and the twins out of the quarters he'd given them down to the living room he and Breha had.

He gestured towards the holoprojector, which Padmé realised with a jolt was showing a video from Naboo. She'd recognise the domes of her home planet anywhere.

"What is this?" she asked, settling down on one of the armchairs in the room, careful not to jostle the sling across her front that Luke and Leia were in too much.

"Your funeral," Breha said.

Startled, she glanced at the screen. Sure enough, there was the corpse of a woman who looked a lot like her lying in the coffin, hair curled and decorated with white flowers, face painted to disguise the fact that it was the wrong one. The woman's throat was left exposed by the blue dress she was wearing, and Padmé's blood ran cold at the sight of the bruises on it.

That woman wasn't her, but it certainly looked like she'd been choked to death as she nearly had.

"Who is it?" she asked sharply. "Who did Palpatine kill to make Anakin think he killed me?"

Bail pinched his lips together. "We think it was your handmaiden, Saché."

 _Saché_. She hadn't been in active service as one of Padmé's handmaidens since the Trade Federation's invasion of Naboo, instead serving as an alternate, or someone to be called on when needed. Why had the Emperor targeted her?

 _Because she doesn't have a family left. Because she's not in active service, nor the public eye._

 _Because she wouldn't be missed_.

There was a tight feeling in her chest. She couldn't _breathe_ -

And then she caught sight of someone else in the procession, and she wasn't sure her heart could beat, either.

"My parents," she choked out. "Sola, Ryoo, Pooja." Her sister had been crying, she could tell. And now Sola had to walk behind her "corpse" and watch as she was put to rest.

Her voice was quiet as she said, "You didn't tell them I'm alive?"

Breha shook her head. "It has to be a complete secret, Padmé, you know that."

She swallowed, and nodded. She did know that.

"Either way, it won't be a secret for long," Bail assured her. "Vader's been introduced to the galaxy; you've been proclaimed dead. Now it's time for you to get to Coruscant and call Palpatine out on his lies."

She didn't reply.

"Are you ready?"

She still didn't reply.

"Padmé?"

"Yes," she said quietly. Then, more fiercely, " _Yes_."

* * *

Coruscant was almost exactly as Padmé remembered it, although she wasn't sure why she was surprised. It had only been a few weeks, after all.

The only noticeable difference from space was the sudden influx in security. Security had been tight during the Clone Wars, but it seemed to be even tighter now, and even though the _Tantive IV_ 's transponder identified them as a Republic - now Imperial - senator's ship, the clone who hailed them on the comms still made it abundantly clear that they would be fired upon if they didn't transmit clearance codes immediately.

Captain Antilles transmitted the codes, apparently nonchalant about it, but Padmé was slightly shaken.

"Wait until you see the surface," Bail murmured.

She glanced at him, but he didn't say anything else as they broke atmosphere and Captain Antilles brought them in for a landing.

They didn't want to draw attention to the fact that Padmé was there until she made her speech in the Senate, so while she _was_ wearing one of her famously elaborate gowns, it was hidden by a heavy dark cloak, and while her hair _was_ in a fancy up-do at the top of her head, she wouldn't put the accessory on until she was in her pod in the Senate Chamber, when she finally _wanted_ to be noticed and recognised as Senator Amidala.

There were so many people in the hallways buzzing about the news even weeks after the proclamation, senators and officers alike, that no one gave Senator Organa and his "aide" more than a cursory glance. She made it to Naboo's pod quickly enough, and Bail paused just before he made to walk to Alderaan's, giving her a grave look.

"Good luck," he said, and the finality in the words scared her.

Nevertheless, she took a deep breath, and smiled. "I'll be fine," she assured him, then drew her headpiece from her pocket and fixed it to her hair.

Then she turned around, and entered the pod.

Palpatine was speaking from his podium in the middle of the room, with Vader standing behind him, but that was all Padmé managed to take in before her way was barred by Captain Typho and his guards. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but this pod isn't open to the public-" He broke off, staring at her. "My lady?"

"Yes, Captain," she replied, brushing past him to the front of the pod.

"Excuse me, my lady, but what-"

"You'll find out, Captain."

She undid the clasp of the cloak and let it fall to the floor. She was wearing the dark blue dress and jacket she'd worn when on the Loyalist committee, as a not-so-subtle symbol of her allegiances, and _Shiraya's word_ it was hot wearing it underneath such a heavy cloak.

She stepped up next to Jar Jar's position at the head of the pod; the way he gave her a curious glance, then a wide eyed one of exaggerated shock was almost comical. "Senator Padmé!"

"Hello, Jar Jar," she said quietly, wincing at how loud his exclamation had been. Some of the senators in the surrounding pods had heard it and turned to look; mutterings of "She's alive!" were breaking out, the word spreading.

She needed to make her speech _fast_.

She pressed the button that signalled to the Senate that she wanted to speak, and Naboo's pod hovered forward, into plain view.

Palpatine wasn't angled towards them, still giving his speech, so he didn't notice the mood in the room changing soon enough. Anakin seemed to - he was glancing around with that horrific mask of his, trying to ascertain the source of the dissent he could sense - but the Emperor was too busy glancing down at the datapad with irritation to see who had dared interrupt his monologue, then saying with a forced smile, "The chair recognises the honourable Representative Binks from Naboo- oh."

He cut himself off as he caught sight of her and Padmé, attuned to the slightest hint of an expression on his face, didn't miss the anger that contorted it before he smoothed it out again into an expression of relief.

Nor did she miss the way Anakin stiffened when he lay eyes on her, either.

"It is with great surprise and joy that the chair recognises the Senator from Naboo, Padmé Amidala!" Palpatine ploughed on, a beatific smile that almost looked genuine gracing his features. "Who apparently has defied death yet again."

Padmé ground her teeth at the words. She knew what he was referencing: the time from just before the Clone Wars, where Cordé was killed in an assassination attempt on her life. Palpatine had already announced Padmé's "death" to the Senate, and he'd greeted her with exactly the same words as he'd greeted her with today, just as fake the first time round as the second.

Well, perhaps he _had_ been glad she wasn't dead that first time. After all, how could he use her to get Anakin on his side if she was dead and gone?

She cast the thought aside; it didn't matter. It didn't matter, because Padmé had a speech to make, and a government to ruin.

"Indeed," she said, letting the microphone amplify her voice so everyone in the chamber could hear her. Anakin had barely moved since she'd made her appearance. "I'm sure it was with great surprise, Chancellor."

She saw the outrage that crossed his face at the title, but this didn't care. No matter what she'd told Obi-Wan, Bail and Breha, she knew full well this was a massive risk, and may well be the last speech she ever made.

So she might as well tell the truth. The _whole_ truth.

"I'm sure there's no doubt in any of your minds right now that the report our dear Chancellor gave about my death wasn't worth the datapad it was written on," she began, "but I'm afraid that the deception runs further than that, and I'm here to share everything I've learned about him since the proclamation we all remember.

"Firstly," she argued, "I would like all of you who support this man to ask yourselves this: If I stand here before you now, as healthy as someone could be several weeks after a traumatic birth, then whose corpse was it in the funeral procession? We all remember the report the Chancellor gave where he claimed that he recovered 'my corpse' from where the Jedi supposedly choked me to death with the Force. He even had several coroners examine it to confirm that it was, indeed, a woman dead less than forty eight hours. So _whose corpse was it_?

"I've contacted several of my old handmaidens, only to find that one of them, Saché, is missing," she continued. "I asked one of them to perform a DNA analysis of the corpse, and sure enough, it was Saché's body in the coffin. Saché, who was in perfect health, and who was reported to be missing around the time I was giving birth. She was last seen in the company of two clonetroopers who reportedly had orders from the Chancellor's Red Guards themselves."

It wasn't evidence for his evil, Padmé knew. It wasn't concrete, and it wasn't enough to condemn him - _especially_ when she hadn't gone into _how_ he killed Saché yet - but it was enough to sow doubt. It was enough to turn public opinion against him.

And he knew it. His jovial façade kept slipping, showing the glare and the ugly anger beneath. Knowing he was a Sith Lord, Padmé was half-afraid he would just reach out and choke her as Anakin had-

But he wouldn't. Because the holocams were rolling, and thousands upon thousands of beings were watching. To do so would be to kill public support altogether.

Even if he tried to decry her as crazy, or ill, or out of her mind, it would plant doubt in the listeners' heads. If she kept talking, he might find flaws in her argument (she and Bail had pored over it on the way to Coruscant; there were none), but until he'd heard the whole thing, he wasn't going to act.

More's the pity. That would make her job so much easier.

"Secondly," she continued, "I would like to address the other lies in his report of my death, namely the one mentioned earlier: that I was strangled to death via the Force." She paused to put her hands done on either side of the microphone and said in a flat voice, "I was not attacked by a Jedi.

"I was attacked by my husband."

There were gasps around the place, but she paid them no heed. She knew there'd been speculation on whether or not she was married since it became obvious that she was pregnant, and there was no point in letting the rumours run unchecked. Not when telling the truth could help her so much.

"The reason my marriage was a secret was because at the time of the wedding, my husband was a Jedi. It would have ruined both our careers. However, this is _far_ more important than two people's careers, so here it is: My husband, Anakin Skywalker, betrayed the Jedi Order. In the rage brought on by his. . . _indoctrination_. . . he lost his control and choked me, causing me to go into a violent and traumatic labour which I and my twin children barely survived. I have been recovering for weeks, which is why I was unfortunately not able to bring any of this to light any sooner.

"Nevertheless," she straightened up. "These are the facts: I was _not_ nearly murdered by the Jedi. I was nearly murdered by Anakin Skywalker, the man who stands as _our beloved Emperor's_ right hand man, the man who has been said to speak with the voice of the Emperor and his interests, who was given the authority of the Emperor himself." Her face contorted in disgust as she said, "The authority to murder his own men for an assassination attempt they were innocent of."

There were murmurs of dissent; it was clear that stories of what had happened when the cyborg monster was first introduced had already circulated. She paused, giving the listeners a chance to put the pieces together, then said, "I was nearly murdered by Darth Vader."

There was a silence as every eye turned towards Vader, who hadn't stopped staring at Padmé, helmet tilted upwards, unmoving. She couldn't see his face, but she could imagine the expression on it: one of absolute adoration mixed with betrayal.

"Preposterous!" someone in the Senate shouted. "We have no evidence that any of this is true!"

Padmé opened her mouth to argue back, but another senator had already moved forward into the debate, violet skin flushed and voice louder than Padmé had ever heard it.

"If we aren't going to believe Senator Amidala's word on its own," Riyo Chuchi asked, "then why don't we gain a second opinion from the man whom our Emperor himself has said speaks with his authority? Lord Vader," she said, her voice rising again, "is what Senator Amidala says true?"

Padmé saw Palpatine flick his gaze from where he'd been glaring at Chuchi towards Anakin, who remained stock still. "Which part would you like me to verify?" he asked slowly, not turning her mask away from Padmé.

Chuchi turned to look at Padmé, who took over again. "Did you or did you not attempt to choke me to death?"

There was a pause, then-

"Yes, Padmé," Anakin said, voice small and apologetic. It sounded strange through the vocoder. "And I'm-"

"Did you, or did you not lead an assault on the Jedi Temple and personally slaughter every youngling in the building, most of whom were under the age of twelve, and had no way of knowing of or assisting with the coup the Jedi were supposedly attempting?"

There were gasps at the seemingly random question, then gasps as Vader said, voice still small, "Yes, Padmé."

"And finally, Anakin," she said, "when a few select Jedi attempted to overthrow the Chancellor, was it, or was it not, an attempt in good faith - an illegal attempt, but one in good faith nonetheless - to remove a man whom they feared would become a dictator in his quest for control over the _Republic_ they held dear?" She put a slight stress on the word. _The Jedi believed in the same thing we do._

Anakin hung his head. "It was."

"And was Order Sixty-Six an order for the clones to murder every Jedi in existence regardless of their involvement or lack thereof in a coup that had no malicious intents towards the Republic to begin with?"

"It w-"

"Enough!" Palpatine shouted, that animalistic rage he kept so tightly controlled finally rearing its head. He glared at her, and even at this distance, she could see the yellow in his eyes.

His voice softened as he spoke to her, like a grandfather speaking to an overly wilful child. "You must be mistaken, my dear; you know I would never do such a thing! Perhaps the traumatic birth you speak of has addled your mind." His voice softened into faux fondness. "Tell me, are your twins well?"

Ignoring the implied threat, she answered sweetly, "They are very well, thank you, Chancellor, and I'm afraid I'm no longer certain about what you would or wouldn't do. But if you don't believe me," she addressed the rest of the Senate, "then I have a myriad of sources and contacts I can cite if you would like to view the evidence for yourself."

"Such as?" Palpatine asked.

"Such as I," Bail said, his pod hovering forward. "I, and my associates, all of whom have been instrumental in digging up the information Senator Amidala has shared, even after our esteemed Emperor put so much effort into burying it."

Palpatine stared at Bail Organa, and she could tell the precise moment he knew he'd lost. Padmé on her own may carry some weight, but she was known as being a champion of the Republic, a champion of morality; of course she would argue against the Empire. But Bail Organa was seen as a voice of reason.

If he said some facts were true, then they were true. There was nothing for him to dispute.

Palpatine had lost.

He met her gaze. She was too mature to show any smugness on her face, but she let the sense of victory shine through, the satisfaction in her win, and he snarled.

And Padmé was afraid.

If Palpatine couldn't take her Republic from her, he would take everything else he could. He'd threatened the twins, but he didn't know where they were; he couldn't hurt them. But Anakin. . .

Anakin was standing right behind him.

"Anakin, watch out!" she shouted, before anything could even happen, but it was a good thing she did.

Palpatine turned, raising his hand, and Anakin couldn't get his saber up in time. He was blasted by the violet lightning that shot from Palpatine's hands; he flew back to collide with the edge of the pod before bringing his saber up and deflecting most of it away from himself.

Seeing his last attempt at victory was over, before the clones could decide their loyalties were to the Republic and not to him, desperate to escape with his life so he could put into play another plot, another action, another coup, Palpatine ran to the edge of the Chancellor's pod and jumped.

He didn't hit the ground.

* * *

"Will Anakin be alright?" Padmé asked the medical droid anxiously the moment it left the med bay. It ignored her, instead hurrying off down the corridor to fetch whatever it'd gone to fetch.

"Your husband tried to kill you, and you're worried if he'll be alright?"

Padmé turned to meet Mon Mothma's eye. "I. . ." She paused. She couldn't say it was an accident; that would invalidate half of her speech.

She just didn't want to deal with this right now. She wanted to be back on Alderaan with the twins - no, she wanted to go home to Naboo with the twins and hug her parents, her sister, her nieces. She'd already fielded several tense calls from them, having to explain that everything was alright, absolutely fine, her children were doing fantastic and she _didn't know about her husband_. . .

She just wanted to be _safe_.

Padmé ran her hand through her hair; it'd come undone sometime after the Senate meeting, while everyone around her had been chasing after Palpatine. She wasn't sure what he'd done, but he'd pulled out a series of flips and Force pushes and somehow jumped from pod to pod all the way to the ventilation shafts in the floor, where he'd disappeared.

She wasn't sure how he'd fit _in_ the ventilation shafts, but. . . "How goes the hunt for Palpatine?" So long as he survived, he would never stop plotting against her Republic, and her.

Mon sighed. "It's going. I'm not sure what he did, but there are a handful of clones who are running after and defending him."

"And the rest of the clones?"

"They're giving chase," Mon assured her. "They haven't lost their allegiance to the Republic. Mas Amedda rescinded the order to kill all Jedi on sight, and now Master Kenobi has joined the hunt on Coruscant."

" _Mas_ _Amedda_ is helping us?"

Mon nodded. "He's suspected to be one of Palpatine's lackeys, or an enabler at the absolute best. But he's weak-willed. He's offering up Palpatine on a platter to save his own head. His cooperation in return for amnesty."

 _Amnesty._ Padmé glanced at the door to the med bay, an idea taking root in her mind, but first she asked, "So, the surviving Jedi can come back?"

"Already several of the surviving padawans have begun to do so - Caleb Dume is one of them, I believe." She paused, then said, "As is Ahsoka Tano."

" _Ahsoka's_ on Coruscant?" Padmé asked, probably a little too excitedly, but she'd loved Ahsoka. It'd broken her heart when the girl had chosen to leave - just as she knew it had broken Anakin's.

 _Anakin_. "Wait - does Ahsoka know about Anakin?"

Mon paused. "If she saw the broadcast, I. . . assume so."

Padmé winced. Poor Ahsoka. "Do you know where she is?"

"I heard she was helping scout out the Jedi Temple."

Padmé nodded. "I'll visit her once I've seen Anakin."

Mon glanced at the door. "Are you sure you _want_ to see him? He nearly killed you, Padmé."

Padmé swallowed, and shrugged. "He's my husband," she said by way of explanation.

"He'll probably be executed."

She winced. "I won't let that happen. Not that I'll abuse my status to bail someone out who deserves to be punished," she added hurriedly at the look Mon gave her, "but I'll see if I can arrange a suitable punishment that means he's still alive. My children deserve to have a father in their lives."

"I agree," Mon said, and she looked like she was going to say more, but at that point the medical droid that had left the room earlier came back down the corridor.

It paused just before entering the room. "We are currently operating on the patient, ma'am," it informed her in a monotone voice. "If you wish, we can contact you on your comlink once he's free to receive visitors, but until then I'm told that having worried family members nearby can be detrimental to a Force user's recovery."

Padmé bit her lip. "I understand." She narrowed her eyes at the droid. "You'll contact me the moment he gets out?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Okay then." She glanced up at Mon. "I'm going to find Ahsoka. I'll see you in the Senate later to elect the new chancellor."

"Indeed. And, Padmé," she called after her. Padmé paused, halfway down the corridor. Mon swallowed, then said, "I'm glad you're alive. I was worried I'd never see you again." She nodded her head towards her. "I look forward to serving in the Senate with you."

"Oh, Mon." Padmé laughed. "I have two children to raise, a husband with severe health problems, and lingering mental and physical health issues of my own. I'm in no position to rebuild a government. The moment we elect a new chancellor. . ." She shook her head. ". . .I'm kriffing resigning."

Mon laughed. "Then I look forward to seeing you as a friend. Goodbye, Padmé."

"Goodbye, Mon," she replied. "And may the Force be with you."

* * *

" _Padmé?"_ came the startled gasp. It drew her up short; she hadn't even reached the temple, she was still in the corridors of the Senate Dome, and yet here was-

"Ahsoka!"

She'd wrapped her arms around the girl before she had the chance to react, and felt Ahsoka tentatively wrap her arms around her in return. "I thought you were dead."

"And I you," Padmé replied, feeling tears prick her eyes. When she pulled back, she could see those tears mirrored in Ahsoka's blue eyes. "You got taller."

"Yeah, well. . " The girl looked down, then back up again. "It's been a while."

"What-" Padmé was almost afraid to ask, but she ploughed on anyway. "What happened on Mandalore?"

"Maul escaped," Ahsoka said flatly. "And then Order Sixty-Six rolled around, and. . ." She tried to shrug, but Padmé could see the weight that had settled on her shoulders. "Rex was the only clone in the regiment who'd dug out his chip. The rest of them turned on me. Rex and I had to fight our way out."

Padmé hugged her again, tighter this time. Ahsoka returned it just as fiercely. "I'm sorry, Ahsoka," she whispered. "I'm just glad you're alive."

"You're alive as well!" There was still wonder in the girl's voice, as well as relief. "And - what you said about Anakin-"

"Was true." Padmé winced as she said it.

"Oh." Ahsoka reached for her own throat, and it took a moment for Padmé to realise why. "You mean, even the-"

Padmé swallowed. "Yes."

Then there was a tentative hand touching her shoulder in a silent show of support. "I'm sorry," Ahsoka said. "Is Anakin. . .?"

"He's alive. He'd being operated on as we speak. Obi-Wan cut off three of his limbs and left him to burn, so that life support system was really necessary, and Palpatine's lightning damaged it badly." She took a breath. "I'm hoping to arrange something where he gets amnesty if he cooperates, like Mas Amedda did."

"You will? Even after he nearly killed you?"

Padmé just looked at Ahsoka. "Wouldn't you?"

The girl paused for a moment, then let out a breath. "I would."

There was something grave about the words, but Ahsoka didn't seem to want to dwell on it for too long. So she asked, with forced cheerfulness, "Did you say you'd given birth to twins?"

Padmé perked up at the mention of her babies, and nodded. "Yes. Luke and Leia." Her hand strayed to the pocket where her comlink was held. "Would you like to see them?"

Ahsoka's face broke out into a smile. "Absolutely."

* * *

The message came from the medical droid sometime while Ahsoka was still cooing over Luke and Leia. Padmé had asked if she wanted to come in with her, but Ahsoka had decided to stay and talk to Breha over the comms; she didn't want to intrude on Padmé's time with Anakin, and she didn't have anything she wanted to say to her old master at that moment in time anyway.

Padmé lingered by the doorway, nervous. Maybe she shouldn't be here. Maybe Obi-Wan was right, and her husband was lost. Maybe-

"Padmé?"

She cursed herself. Of course she should be here. Anakin was here. Anakin was in pain.

Anakin needed her.

"I'm here," she choked out, and stepped forward into his direct vision. He was a sight to behold, with all four of his limbs taken off and placed at various parts around the room. All his hair and half the skin on his face had been burned away, and a transparent oxygen mask covered his face.

But the eyes that looked at her, watery with emotion, were blue.

It was still her Anakin.

She sat down in one of the chairs next to his bed; she wasn't sure her legs would hold her for much longer. Since she walked in, she hadn't taken her eyes off him, nor he her.

"Padmé," he breathed.

That snapped her out of it. She shook her head, so many words coming to her tongue that she wasn't sure she could say them all. "Anakin. . ." She shook her head again. " _Why_?"

"Why did I attack you?" His voice sounded even smaller than it had without the vocoder.

"Why did you do _any_ of it?" She sighed. "Actually, never mind. I don't- I don't want to know."

"The Republic failed."

"Then we _make it better_!" she shouted. "If something isn't working, we _fix it_! We don't kill thousands of people and put a megalomaniac in power!"

"I. . . didn't know." He shook his head. "Padmé, you have to believe me, I-"

"I know." She ran a hand through her hair. "I know you didn't. But, _Anakin_. . ." She was horrified to find tears sliding down her face; she blinked her eyes to clear them. Anakin looked stricken, trying to lift his hand to wipe them away, only to remember that his prosthetics had been detached and that he didn't _have_ a hand. "Why did you do it?"

She wasn't looking for an answer, and he knew it. There was no answering that question. So he didn't offer one.

Instead, he said, "They're going to execute me, aren't they?"

"They might," Padmé said, "but I don't intend to let them. We're not going to lie about your involvement, but I _will_ see if I can get you a lesser sentence in return for your cooperation - exile from the Core Worlds, perhaps."

"Padmé, I can't-"

"At most you'll be charged for- what?" She ticked them off on her fingers. "Murder of several minors, murder of five officers, attempted murder of a pregnant woman," he flinched at that, "and I don't think they'll count the killing of the Separatist leaders. That was still during wartime. Palpatine was the one who instigated Order Sixty-Six, so that should be one of the crimes he's trialled for, and technically he didn't tell you anything about it so you can't be seen as an enabler."

She took a deep breath. "It's a lot of crimes, and it will be a heavy punishment, but you know a lot about Palpatine's government. If you do your part to disable it and make amends. . . exile might be a feasible punishment."

But Anakin shook his head. "Padmé," he whispered, "I deserve to _die_ for this."

"Perhaps you do," she admitted, unwilling to sugar-coat it, "but that would help no one. And then the information you could provide would be lost." He still looked sceptical, so she added fiercely, "This war and Palpatine's deceptions have torn too many families apart. I'm not letting it destroy mine. The twins deserve their father."

He looked up at that. "Twins?" he croaked. "You said, in the Senate, but-" He broke off. "What are their names?"

"Luke and Leia," she told him. "Obi-Wan tells me they're very strong in the Force. They'll need a teacher."

"Obi-Wan and Ahsoka can do it. They don't need me."

"They're _your_ children, Anakin. They need you." Then, more quietly, " _I_ need you."

His head jerked up at the words, his mouth falling open. He looked so lost, so vulnerable in that moment that Padmé wanted to cry.

Slowly, he nodded. "Okay," he said. "Okay. I'll live."

* * *

Senator Amidala stayed on Coruscant only as long as it took for the droids to rebuild her husband's prosthetics and reinstall them. Apparently they'd even made some upgrades; Palpatine had purposefully denied him the best treatment possible to keep him contained in the future, and they'd found that the burns were still fresh enough that they could begin to heal them.

Meanwhile, Padmé herself acted as a go-between from Anakin to the Senate, fixing the damage he'd wrought and securing his sentence. For the information he provided, he was exiled from all major political and economic worlds such as Coruscant, Alderaan and Corellia, but he was allowed to keep his life.

Once he was as healed as he could be, Padmé returned to Alderaan to pick up her children and say goodbye to Breha, then headed home to Naboo, where Anakin had already departed for. She didn't know what had been said between Anakin and Ahsoka, or Anakin and Obi-Wan for that matter, but she knew there was still tension there, and it would probably take years to resolve.

When she saw her parents, they cried. Her sister cried. Her nieces hugged the twins and wondered why everyone was crying.

They weren't thrilled to see Anakin - they'd seen Padmé's speech, as had what seemed like everyone else in the galaxy - but had to accept that he was a part of her life. He didn't try to socialise with them much anyway, instead going straight to the townhouse Padmé had bought to look around and making sure it was child-friendly.

So Luke and Leia grew up on Naboo, in a Republic slowly recovering from the events of the war. Padmé formally resigned as Senator, but she still saw Bail, Breha and Mon frequently and kept up with the political situation.

It was two weeks before the Republic rescinded the _capture only_ order on Palpatine and changed it to _kill on sight_. He was killed a week later, when he found that even he couldn't electrocute or choke four dozen clonetroopers all at once, any of whom could shoot him with a blaster from well outside of his lightning's range.

Anakin both cheered and cried when he heard the news. Despite the man's evil, he had loved him.

* * *

"Everyone likes to think their mother saved the galaxy," one of the twins' teachers said at some point.

Luke and Leia just shared a look across the classroom. _Yeah, but ours actually did._


	3. Bodhi Rook, 0 BBY

**So, I meant to establish that this oneshot series is an ongoing thing, with no promises about how long it'll take me to update in between, but I think the fact that it's been four months speaks for itself.**

 **I've had the first half of this written out for months; the rest of it was done in a rush in the last two days. So if you notice any major deteriorations in quality of writing... that's why.**

 **This is an AU in which Bodhi Rook never defected. It has a sad (or just plain depressing) ending, with several major character deaths in between because... well, Bodhi was a vital character, and I didn't want to diminish his sacrifice. As Leia said in the comics "If one person had flinched, the Death Star would still be here", and well, Bodhi flinched.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars.**

* * *

 _Bodhi Rook_

"You have the chance to make a difference, Bodhi," Galen was saying, voice low and urgent. Bodhi trembled where he stood, trying not to meet the man's eye, although Galen was trying his hardest to make him. "If you follow your heart, and do what you know is right."

Bodhi still didn't meet his eye.

Galen sighed, but he clearly still thought Bohdi would help him in. . . whatever he was planning. He hadn't actually said so yet, even though he'd been buttering up to it for a good while by now, going back as far as the last few times Bohdi had been to Eadu to drop off cargo, and if he didn't say so soon Bodhi was going to be late—

"Here, Bodhi," he said, reaching his hand out with a datachip in it. "If you want to do the right thing, take this to Saw Gerrera's partisans on Jedha. They'll need this information."

Bodhi swallowed, but it seemed like his body was on autopilot as he accepted the datachip. He knew who Saw Gerrera and his followers were—everyone from Jedha did. They were insurgents.

Terrorists.

 _Rebels._

Bodhi's hands were still shaking as he walked back to his ship.

Galen Erso was a traitor.

And if Bodhi did what he'd said—if he even failed to report that he'd said what he'd said—he would be a traitor, too.

He knew exactly how the Empire dealt with traitors; the frequent executions broadcast from Coruscant were graphic enough. Many of those executed had been defectors who'd thought the Empire wouldn't catch them.

He swallowed harshly and glanced down at the chip in his hand. People like him.

Sure, he didn't agree with a lot of what the Empire was doing. As Galen said, doing this would be following his heart, and doing what he thought was right.

But Bodhi hadn't survived working for the Empire for several years by following his heart. So he didn't.

* * *

Krennic frowned at the datachip that had landed on his desk. He was a busy man, what with everything yet to be organised about Project: Stardust, so he didn't know what the officer in charge of the installation on Eadu was doing, giving him a scrappy chip that had apparently been handed in by a mere cargo pilot.

 _But_ , said cargo pilot had, _apparently_ , received the chip from Galen Erso, and everything about the situation with Galen had to be monitored closely. So he plugged the chip into his datareader and studied the video that played.

Galen looked tense, his expression harried—but then again, Galen had looked like that since Lyra had died. Krennic didn't react much until he started speaking.

 _"Saw, if you are watching this_ — _"_

Krennic froze. Saw? Saw Gerrera? Known terrorist?

Perhaps this information _was_ of consequence, after all.

 _"_ — _then perhaps there is a chance to save the Alliance."_

Yes. Yes, this information was _very_ important—in the first few years, Krennic had expected Galen to defect, try to aid the Rebellion, but he'd thought the man subdued. He thought he'd lost all hope.

Evidently not.

 _"A chance to explain myself, and_ — _though I dare not hope for too much_ — _a chance for Jyn._ If _she's alive. If you can possibly find her."_

The daughter—the one who'd escaped. Krennic's lip curled. No, Galen hadn't lost his hope, and he hadn't lost his sentiment, either.

 _"Jyn,"_ he was saying now, _"my stardust. I can't imagine what you think of me. When I was taken I faced some_ — _"_ He paused slightly, throat working. _"_ — _bitter truths. I was told that, soon enough, Krennic would have you as well. As time went by I knew that you were either dead, or so well hidden that he would never find you."_

Dead, probably. _No one_ could evade the Empire for as long as she had, as well as she had, especially not a _child_.

 _"I knew if I refused to work, if I took my own life, it would only be a matter of time before Krennic realised he no longer needed me to complete the project. So I did the one thing nobody expected,"_ despite himself, Krennic leaned forward to listen, _"I lied._

 _"I_ learned _to lie. I played the part of a beaten man resigned to the sanctuary of his work. I made myself indispensable. And all the while, I laid the groundwork of my revenge."_

Against his will, Krennic's breath caught in his throat. _Revenge?_ The situation with Tarkin and Galen was precarious enough as it was—anything that constituted as "revenge", anything that could disrupt that delicate balance, would be _catastrophic_ for Krennic and his plans. Tarkin could use it to prove him unfit for command, he could discredit him in the eyes of the Emperor. . .

 _"We call it the Death Star,"_ Galen said, and Krennic tensed. Had the pilot who'd handed this in seen the recording? Had the people in between? How many people had Galen now told? _"There is no better name. And the day is coming soon when it will be unleashed."_

Who knew about this? _Who knew?_ Rumours of death and despair could help solidify the Empire's control over the more jittery worlds, but if the Rebellion caught wind of this—if Tarkin found out he'd _let_ the Rebellion get wind of this—

 _"I've placed a weakness deep within the system_ — _a flaw so small and powerful that they will never find it."_

What.

That—that was as terrible as Krennic had feared. If Galen had _designed_ the thing to be destructible, if the Rebellion could disable or destroy his great achievement, if Tarkin or the Emperor found out about this—

 _"But Jyn,"_ Galen was still speaking. _"Jyn, if you're listening, my beloved. . ."_ His voice broke. _"So much of my life has been wasted. And I try to think of you only in the moments I am strong because the pain_ — _"_

Krennic skipped forward in the recording, an irritated scoff spitting out of him. He had no time to listen to useless drivel about how much Galen missed his family. He needed to know about the threat to his success!

 _"_ — _my stardust,"_ he whispered, almost reverently.

Krennic almost skipped forward again, but then the topic shifted back to something he actually _wanted_ to hear.

 _"Saw, the reactor module,"_ Galen said, voice steady with purpose and urgency. Krennic sat forward again, listening intently. _"That's the key. That's the place I laid my trap. It's well-hidden, and unstable. One blast to any part of it will destroy the entire station."_

And _that_ was what Krennic had needed to hear. The reactor module. The reactor module. _That_ was the source of Krennic's problems, his potential downfall—and it was something he couldn't change.

He may be a politician, but he was first and foremost a scientist—there was a _reason_ the reactor module could connect to the whole station. It was _necessary_ for the whole station, a vital piece of the whole. And even if it wasn't. . . Tarkin had made it _very_ clear that the Emperor would tolerate no further delay with the construction. If Krennic tried to reverse it now, claimed that there was an unforeseen flaw. . . He _would_ be declared unfit to lead.

 _"You will need the plans_ — _the structural plans to the Death Star to find the reactor."_

Well, that was obvious—and it was easy enough task for him, as director of the project, to get hold of them. Somewhat harder for the Rebels this message had been intended for, no doubt, but it hadn't reached them so Krennic didn't care. He didn't need the information about the archives on Scarif; he skipped forward again—

 _"_ — _any pressurised explosion to the reactor module will set off a chain reaction that will destroy the entire station."_

The message ended there.

Krennic took a deep breath. He needed to decide what to do now.

Galen Erso was a traitor. That in itself was only a surprise because of had long it had taken him to become one.

But the weakness to the Death Star—that vital, glaring weakness—

Only it wasn't glaring, Krennic realised, his engineering education coming to mind again. A reactor module. . . that would be three metres wide at _most_ , two metres if Galen had tried not to advertise the weakness. A near _impossible_ shot for anyone. Perhaps a Jedi could have pulled it off, but they were dead.

A weakness no one could exploit?

That was no worry at all. No one needed to know about it.

And if Krennic had lost control of his head scientist, nearly resulting in catastrophe? No one— _especially_ Tarkin—needed to know about that, either.

Which meant destroying everyone who _did_ know about it.

Killing the pilot was easy enough—hyperspace flight was dangerous to everyone, even cargo pilots, and no one would question it if a navicomputer tragically became a little faulty at a crucial moment. The officers and troopers who'd possibly looked at it in between would be a little more difficult, but he could do it. He was the director of the most influential project in the history of the Empire.

He let out a slow, controlled sigh. Yes. Yes—he could do this. He could do this, then all he had to do was find a way of silencing Galen lest he try to contact the Rebellion again, and he could put this unfortunate setback behind him.

He flicked off the holoprojector, then switched on his datapad. Sitting at the top was a notification from Grand Moff Tarkin—he made to curl his lip at it, but then he froze at what it said.

 _The Emperor has graciously allowed you to choose which world will be an appropriate test for Project Stardust, upon its completion._

A smile tugged at his lips as he glanced at the now-dead holoprojector.

Galen's facility was on Eadu, wasn't it?

* * *

Three weeks later, Galen sighed as he glanced out the window. It was raining outside. Again.

At least Eadu's lightning storms were wonders to behold, even if they caused more problems for the facility than they were worth. Right now, they were doing a good job of frying the communications array, meaning the transmission he was receiving now was broken up and glitchy.

"Krennic," he greeted in a passionless voice. Anxiety still gnawed at him—Bodhi had been replaced on his normal cargo run, and the new pilot hadn't offered an explanation for it. Had he defected, or been killed?

Krennic tilted his head. _"Galen,"_ he greeted pleasantly. It was _exactly_ the same tone as he'd had when he landed on Lah'mu, right before he slaughtered Lyra and destroyed his life. _"Can you see the sky this fine day?"_

What? This wasn't the line Krennic's holocalls usually took. He never bothered with pleasantries—just kept posturing and pushing until Galen conceded to his demands.

Nevertheless, he glanced outside again anyway. Nothing had changed. "I wouldn't call it a fine day, Krennic. It's no less stormy than it was yesterday."

 _"Ah, but you see, it_ is _, Galen,"_ Krennic insisted, still in that faux-friendly tone, _"because today, Project: Stardust is complete, and_ you _have the honour of witnessing its final test fire."_

"I would call it less of an honour, Krennic, and more of a curse. It's a weapon of terror."

 _"Perhaps,"_ Krennic admitted, and that had always been the worst thing about Orson. He knew the things he did were wrong, that they were ruining people's lives, and he did them anyway. _"But it will bring safety and security to the galaxy."_

 _You know it won't_ , Galen wanted to say, but he bit his tongue. It was an old argument; there was no use retreading it.

 _"I daresay you'll be blown away by this demonstration,"_ Krennic continued, then a sly smile crept onto his face, a terrifying sense of anticipation. _"And also, my condolences on the loss of Ensign Rook. He was a good cargo pilot; such a shame for his navicomputer to have malfunctioned."_ He went cold at the words. _"And he was a loyal Imperial,"_ Krennic added, and Galen understood.

He understood _everything_.

He understood that Bodhi had betrayed him, and been murdered for his trouble. He understood that Saw had never received his message.

And he knew that he would truly be blown away by the weapon about to be unleashed.

He didn't bother disconnecting the call, just as he didn't bother looking outside as it happened. He didn't need to; the green flash lit _everything_ , searing through flesh and bone and soul. All the while, his eyes stayed fixed on Krennic's face.

The worst part was the expression there: faintly sorrowful, as though his old friend regretted the waste of it all.

* * *

"Bail?"

Bail turned to see Mon Mothma walking towards him at full speed in the middle of the hangar of the Rebellion's main base. Her white robes shifted around her with every step—for a moment, Bail saw Leia. The fierce set of her jaw certainly called back to his daughter, and the two's fast friendship probably meant Mon had _learned_ that passion from her.

Her, or Padmé.

"Mon," he greeted. "What can I help you with?"

"You received the report I sent you?" she asked, quieting her voice to a whisper. Bail nodded—it had been a disturbing read, the report about an Imperial research facility just. . . wiped off the face of the planet. One of their informants on Eadu had provided the information; apparently several nerfherders had been caught in the blast as well. Their informant had barely survived.

"Then you understand why I ask this," Mon continued. "But your friend—the Jedi. . ."

 _Obi-Wan_. He'd been a general; he might know what to do in this situation.

"He's been in hiding since the end of the Clone Wars," he said slowly, "yes, I will send for him." If the galaxy had ever needed the Jedi, it was now.

And perhaps it was time to tell Leia about her heritage—and, seeing as Obi-Wan would no doubt insist on bringing him along, tell her brother about it as well. He could even have Leia be the one to collect them.

"You will have to send someone you trust," Mon cautioned.

He gave his friend a small smile. He rarely smiled nowadays, not for anyone outside his family, but he smiled now. "I would trust her with my life."

* * *

Vader was angry. He was always angry.

When Vaneé reported to him that Director Krennic had arrived, he was angry.

When he had to interrupt his session in the bacta tank to greet him, he was angry.

And when he laid eyes on the simpering simpleton who dared enter his presence, he was _angry_.

"Director Krennic," he said, and it couldn't in good faith be called a _greeting_ —more of an irritated acknowledgement. His voice was dark, his anger obvious to even this Force-blind rat. "I am informed that you seek an audience with the Emperor."

Krennic swallowed, shivering small and pathetic beneath Vader's massive shadow, but he was either incredibly bold or incredibly stupid because he started talking anyway. "The weapon is complete, and has been tested. I _deserve_ an audience, to _ensure_ he understands its extraordinary—" He took a shuddering breath, then, apparently hyperaware of Vader's metaphysical fingers on his throat. "—potential."

"Its power to create problems has certainly been confirmed," was all Vader said. "An Imperial research facility destroyed? Yours was not the only project of note on Eadu, and the Rebels have been known to pay attention when strategic initiatives go up in smoke. You may have compromised not only the secrecy of this weapon, but countless other interests of the Emperor."

"It. . . was necessary," Krennic attempted to get out. "Galen Erso was of unreliable loyalty. Now that we no longer need him, he needed to be silenced."

"Along with anyone else in the facility who may inform the Rebellion of whatever weaknesses the battle station might have, I'm sure."

Krennic didn't seem to hear the dryness in his tone. "Exactly, my lord, I. . . had hoped this would eliminate any threat."

"And yet you did not seek approval of your target before giving the order to fire," Vader observed. "You did not believe it would be forthcoming?"

"I— The risk of the Senate finding out, the bureaucracy—"

"You are as well aware as I that the Emperor has taken great pains to ensure that the Senate will never find out about this station. Even now, he is preparing to dissolve it, and the bureaucracy, leaving the regional governors in charge. _Your_ battle station shall maintain order."

"So," Krennic said, something disgustingly like hope flashing across his face, "I'm still in command? You'll—" Vader watched with dark humour as he hesitated, before that courage or idiocy won out again, "You'll tell the Emperor as such?"

 _There_. He was sick of Krennic and his grovelling, and this was the last straw.

He curled his fingers, tense and claw-like, and listened with great satisfaction as Krennic's words gave way to gags.

" _I_ will tell the Emperor," he informed him coldly, "that control of the battle station shall be given to Tarkin, and that you have proven yourself reckless with power, as well as prone to decisions which could further undermine the Empire you claim to serve."

"My lord!" Krennic's fists were clenched now, his fear somehow forcing the words through his constricted throat. "I— This is _my_ achievement. I deserve—" His words were choked into unintelligible garbles.

"Then perhaps you can take it up with the Emperor," Vader told him, taking a grim pleasure in the way his lifeless body slumped to the ground. "I am certain he'd be thrilled to hear your objections."

* * *

And so this is how the story went, completely derailed from the destiny the Force had laid out:

Orson Krennic died on Mustafar, parsecs and parsecs away from the fame and power he'd sought, while Vader watched uncaring.

Grand Moff Tarkin was given control of the battle station, allowing him more power than anyone in the galaxy save the Empire himself. All those who knew him understood that he would not use that power kindly.

And young Leia Organa, _not_ in mortal peril from being chased away from Scarif by a murderous Sith Lord, landed on Tatooine in search of a Jedi general who'd long since gone into hiding. . .

* * *

Leia had been in the speeder for at least two hours now, and she was starting to get impatient.

"Are you _sure_ Obi-Wan Kenobi is here?" she asked of the driver. She shifted, the folds of her loose white dress shifting with her. The cool fabric was a blessing under the twin suns.

"Well, I don't know anyone called _Obi-Wan_ ," the boy—Luke, he'd said his name was Luke—admitted, "but Old Ben Kenobi lives out here, in the Jundland Wastes. He's the only Kenobi on Tatooine." He shrugged. "If you're sure this _Jedi general_ is living here, then he'll probably know where he is."

"Alright," Leia said, chewing her bottom lip. She eyed the boy next to her. Sun-bleached hair, sun-tanned skin—he looked like every other farm kid on this dustball.

But he'd been the only one to offer to help her when she'd landed in Mos Eisley. He'd been there on an errand for his uncle, apparently, and he seemed like the only decent person as far out of his depth there as she was.

She'd known Mos Eisley wasn't the most reputable of places—Captain Antilles had debated long and hard about landing there, yet at the end of the day, of the two major spaceports on the planet, Mos Eisley had a smaller Hutt presence than Mos Espa—but she still hadn't expected it to be quite _that_ bad. She'd wanted to leave as soon as she arrived.

So the cavalier boy her own age had been a blessing, despite the long journey and his uncertainty of whether it would even be worth it. And what he lacked in faith he made up for in enthusiasm—he'd asked a _lot_ of questions about off-world travel; it'd almost succeeded in distracted her from how nervous she was about the task at hand.

Almost.

"These are the Jundland Wastes," Luke said. "Ben's house isn't too much further, but we'd better stay alert. The Sand People are particularly active in this area."

"Sand People?" she asked, watching the walls of the canyon as they entered it. "What are they?"

"Tusken Raiders. They live out near here, and sometimes raid the moisture farms." He swallowed, then added quietly, "My grandmother was killed by them."

"I see," Leia said, glancing around again. The blaster at her side, a familiar weight from her many, _many_ missions run with the Rebellion, suddenly felt heavy.

Now she understood why Captain Antilles had been so hesitant about letting her go off alone with Luke.

But Luke himself was harmless—she didn't know how she knew, just that she _did_ , and she was always right about this sort of thing—and his speeder only fit four spaces. Leia didn't know _why_ her father had insisted that she take R2 and C-3PO with her to meet General Kenobi, but he had, and Captain Antilles had to respect that.

What it _did_ mean, though, was that of the four sentients in the speeder, only two of them—she and Luke—had any sort of firearm to protect themselves.

Ultimately, it didn't matter—Luke drove carefully (for once, by his own admission), taking no risks, and they got to Old Ben's hut without incident.

And when they got there, what they learned changed the rest of their lives forever—however short those lives might have been.

* * *

"So, Bail requests I come to Alderaan," Ben summarised, glancing at Luke for some reason, "in case this threat is more than it seems?"

"Yes." Leia's voice was sure and steady. Luke glanced at her, and glanced away quickly—this was his _sister_?

"Well then, young Luke." Ben glanced at him. "Are you going to come with me?"

Luke laughed for a moment, then realised he was serious.

"Ben," he said, "I can't leave now. It's late, I'm in for it as it is. And—" He sighed, looking away from Leia. "Alderaan is such a long way from here."

"That's your uncle talking."

"My uncle," Luke realised, " _how_ am I gonna explain all this? Princesses and explosions and laser swords." He waved a hand at his father's lightsaber, still in Leia's hands.

He finally looked at her expression, then, and something in his chest crumpled.

"Look, I can take you as far as Anchorhead," he promised, "but I'm not even allowed to attend the Academy, let alone join the Rebellion! And training as a Jedi. . ." He snorted. "Uncle Owen would _never_ allow that."

Ben sighed. "Very well then, Luke," he said. "I'll leave you a few months to think about it—it's clear you're not ready to start just yet. I shall go to Alderaan with your sister, and return once this whole crisis has been averted. I hope you will have changed your mind by then."

"Luke. . ." Leia said.

He looked her in the eye. "My uncle needs me," he said. "I'd love to get off Tatooine, believe me, but. . . I'm not ready for all this." He jerked his head towards the door. "Come on, I'll take you to Anchorhead. You can probably get a speeder to Mos Eisley there."

* * *

"You are certain no Rebels know of this battle station? That was quite the demonstration on Eadu, Tarkin."

"Lord Vader has already dealt with any potential leaks," Tarkin replied coolly, with a nod towards the Sith standing at the back of the board room. "I assure you, our weapon is of the utmost secrecy."

"Not for much longer," someone else said, slamming his hand on the table. "This battle station was built to crush the Rebels, and consolidate our Empire as the only worthy government. We stand upon what is now the ultimate power in the galaxy! I suggest we use it."

"Do not be so proud of this technological terror you have constructed," Vader snapped. "It is nothing, next to the power of the Force."

"And what target would you suggest?" Tarkin asked, shooting Vader an irritated glance.

"One that would show the galaxy how no planet is above the Empire's wrath. A centre of trade, and culture, and charity. One which famously already has suspected Rebel ties." The man curled his lip in a sneer. "Alderaan."

Tarkin said back in his chair. "Bail and Leia Organa are highly suspected of treasonous activity, and Breha Organa is guilty by association," he mused. "It would be a good target, but I suggest we consult the Emperor first. It is his graces which have allowed us to bring our project to fruition."

He glanced at Vader, who nodded. "I shall contact him now."

* * *

Leia had been a member and spy in the Imperial Senate for quite a while now; she was used to extended trips off Alderaan. But it always felt good to come back, and the sight of the blue and green planet soothed her in ways she couldn't explain.

General Kenobi was sitting next to her as they descended, the tension in his shoulders only increasing as Captain Antilles's voice sounded over the intercom, telling them all to find seats as they began the descent.

"Luke will be alright," she told him.

He glanced at her as if he'd barely noticed she was there.

"I. . . wouldn't be so sure of that," he said uneasily. "I have a bad feeling about this. . ."

* * *

He was right to have a bad feeling. It was a few days later that a moon appeared in the sky.

Unknowingly, it was the threat that he'd come to Alderaan to hunt. But now it would hunt him.

* * *

A few days, one successful holocall and a short hyperspace jump later, the Death Star hung over Alderaan like the moon the planet had never had.

"The Emperor approves," Tarkin announced to the staff at the bridge—they already knew, but in all his pomp he needed to announce it anyway. "So this will be a momentous day for the history of the Empire. . ."

He turned to the viewport, studying the planet beyond it.

". . .and an end to the history of Alderaan."

He glanced at Vader, smirking a little at the sheer _disgust_ the man was radiating, then turned back to the viewport. "Commence primary ignition. You may fire when ready."

There was a moment of silence after the words, belying their importance, as people busied themselves with their jobs. Tarkin had always wondered at what the engineers—Erso—had been thinking when they made it so complicated to fire the weapon. Did they think that with so many people needed to flick all the switches, there would be no one person responsible—no one destroyed by the guilt of knowing they pulled the trigger?

Fools. Guilty or not, nothing would change the fact that they had served their glorious Empire in this task.

Then all other thoughts flitted away as he watched the beam gather in the dish, and fire. It hit

And as the shards of what used to be a bountiful planet rained down around them, he found himself thinking: _Oh._

 _It's beautiful._

* * *

The Death Star, technological terror that it was, had still managed to do its job. In the weeks since Alderaan's destruction, Rebel activity had halved and the numbers were still falling. No one wanted to share Alderaan's fate.

All of it left Darth Vader with nothing to do. Nothing important, at least.

Darth Vader was not a man who enjoyed being idle.

So he _made_ work for himself to do. The Princess Organa had been on Alderaan when it blew, multiple sources had confirmed, but she'd been missing from Coruscant longer than necessary. Where had she been in that time? Her journey had taken far longer than expected.

Unsurprisingly, no one—not even the Emperor—took his inquiries seriously. She was dead; it wasn't relevant anymore. But the Force was telling Vader that this was important, so he did it.

It wasn't easy—the Organas covered their tracks well—but his investigation came up fruitful. She had been spotted on Tatooine.

Tatooine.

Why go _there_?

Vader had no idea, so naturally he had to go himself to investigate. Ignoring the part of him that obstinately refused to go back—that was _another time_ the memories and loved ones of _another man_ —he went.

And when he asked around Mos Eisley, he learned something _very_ interesting indeed. . .

* * *

By this point, it wasn't unusual for Luke to be wondering what had happened to Leia and Ben. He'd heard about Alderaan— _everyone_ had heard about Alderaan—but that didn't stop him from hoping. Even if it was all a dream.

False hope or not, it meant he was thinking it when Vader came to call. And that the thought was, unbeknownst to him, easily plucked from his mind, entirely confirming to Vader that he'd come to the right place.

Luke was the only one home when he came—Uncle Owen was tending the farm, and Aunt Beru had asked him to watch her blue milk pudding while she headed over to do some shopping in Anchorhead. Vader certainly didn't bother to knock.

Luke jumped, unable to contain his scream when the door to the homestead was flung away, and the harsh light streamed in. A moment later it was blocked against by a _massive_ man, clad in black, respirator whirring, and he was. . .

Luke's stomach did a flip.

That was Darth Vader.

 _Darth Vader betrayed and murdered your father,_ Ben had told him and Leia. Had he come to finish off Luke, too?

Was Leia. . .?

"You are the boy who was seen with the terrorist princess, Leia Organa?" Vader asked, mask tilting right and left as he looked around the small room.

Luke's terror grew, like ice in his heart, through his limbs and freezing him solid.

Vader turned his full attention back on him, then. There seemed to be a moment's hesitation, then he said:

". . .you are Luke Skywalker?"

Luke squeezed his eyes shut.

 _Oh_ stars _he knows._

 _He knows he knows he knows_ I'm gonna die _he_ knows—

"A simple yes or no would suffice," Vader drawled.

Luke managed a jerk of his head. It was the closest he could give to a nod.

It was close enough for Vader.

He stormed forwards, seizing his wrist. "Then you are coming with me."

"What?" _That_ shocked him out of his stupor. "What? No!" He tried to yank his wrist away, but Vader's grip was firm. "Let go of me! I'm not going with you!"

The grip on his wrist tightened, and Vader _twisted_ his arm in a way that dragged a strangled cry from him. There was a pressure in his throat, around his neck—he couldn't breathe, he couldn't move his arms and legs—

Vader released his hand so he could reach for a pair of binders, but Luke _still couldn't move_.

"I am not giving you a choice."

* * *

Months upon months in the Emperor's tender care had taught Luke what nineteen years on Tatooine had not.

The Empire was all that mattered. _His Master's will_ was all that mattered.

Anyone who tried to defy or deny it—he and Biggs's younger selves, his late, misguided sister, Ben Kenobi—was a fool.

His Master and his father had taught him that. Everyone had their place in the Empire, all to serve its ruler's every whim, and he now knew his. He had been given his power for one reason and one reason only: to use it.

The Rebellion had been lying low since Alderaan, all paranoia and fear, no action. That suited Luke just fine. If they would not come out into the light for him to hunt, he would hunt for them in the dark.

In a way, he mused as he left the interrogation cell and the dead body within it behind, it was fitting that it should be Biggs, his oldest friend, who was the Rebel who gave him the last piece of the puzzle. He knew it had been Sidious and Vader's final test, and he had been sure to pass.

He spoke into his comlink, "Set course for Yavin Four." Tarkin said something back, no doubt derogatory, but Luke was no longer listening.

Yes, he had passed the test perfectly. He'd extracted the information, put aside all personal ties, drank in Biggs's pain and used it to bolster his own powers. Their friendship no longer mattered—not now he knew the truth. The _Empire_ was all that mattered.

He allowed himself a small smirk as he felt the vibrations under his feet, the Death Star jumping to hyperspace.

The Empire was all that mattered, and this would be a day long remembered. It was the day the Rebellion was crushed. It was the day it reigned eternal.


End file.
